Midlife Crisis
by Amicitia Revenant
Summary: In a lot of ways, the Turtles are normal teenagers. And in some ways, Splinter is a normal middle-aged man. 2k12 crackfic... sort of.
1. Chapter 1

It was no secret in the Lair that Donatello was building something on four wheels. The first hint was that he made a lot of noise working on it in his lab. The second was that he had been bragging about it and showing it off for months, in between yelling at Mikey to stop touching it. Passive-aggressive and manipulative as the young genius may have been, he was not subtle about his work. And so it was never quite as earth-shattering as he always seemed to think, when he officially revealed a new project.

Leonardo always appreciated the nerd's enthusiasm, though. Donnie was so high-strung, so prone to sudden mood swings, that it was good to see him just plain _happy_ for a change. Leo was always careful to say something nice about his brother's latest creation - though he rarely understood anything beyond its external appearance - since to do otherwise was likely to send Don into a fit of anger. Leo was sure Don didn't deserve that, after the long hours and intense mental effort he invested in projects he obviously thought were important.

And when Donnie revealed _this_ one, Leo was genuinely impressed.

"I call it - the Shellraiser!" Don shouted, as he swept away an enormous tarp to reveal what they had all already seen.

"Whoooooaaaaa," Mike said, and Don basked in the adoration.

"So _now_ do we get to drive it?" Raph asked, completely ruining Don's moment of triumph.

" _No_ ," Don said, kicking the crumpled-up tarp away and levelling a contemptuous look at Raph, as though this were the dumbest question ever. "Now you get to _learn_ how to drive it." He opened the driver's door, allowed his brothers to approach the gleaming machine - though not quite to within touching distance - and pointed to something that Leo could not see very clearly from that far away. "All right," Don said. "To start the engine -"

"Donnie, wait a minute." Leo held up his hand, causing Don to sigh, straighten up, and make his why-are-you-interrupting-me-now face. "Why are _you_ teaching us how to drive?"

Don tilted his head uncertainly, indicating he thought the question had at least some merit. "What do you mean, Leo?"

"I mean," Leo said, "what makes you think you're qualified to give driving lessons?"

"Well, I did build _the Shellraiser_ ," Don replied, emphasizing the name and giving the huge vehicle an affectionate pat on the dashboard.

"I know, and it's great," Leo said quickly, trusting that the motorized jumble of gizmos and gadgets was, in fact, great. "But that makes you qualified to teach auto mechanics, not driver's ed."

"Who else do you think should teach it?" Don asked. "It's not like _any_ of us have much driving experience."

"That's not true," Leo said.

* * *

"Is it true, Sensei?" Michelangelo asked, his eyes huge and sparkling. "Did you really have - _a driver's license?_ "

Splinter hummed thoughtfully, stroking his beard before replying. "Many years ago. In Japan."

"What's it like?" Raphael asked.

"Not as exciting as you might think," Splinter said, in a tone that implied the conversation was already over.

"I mean _driving_ ," Raphael said. "Not having a license."

"Yes, that is what I am talking about," Splinter said. "Unless you intend to be an auto racer - _which is not going to happen_ ," he added swiftly, as Raphael's eyes lit up, "driving is about following the rules and being considerate to other users of the road."

"But that's boring!" Raphael complained.

"Exactly as I said," Splinter repeated once more. Sometimes his boys were too caught up in their own dreams to listen well. "Now, if all of you are going to insist on driving Donatello's invention, I will teach you how to do so safely. But there will be no speeding, no off-roading, no shenanigans of any kind!"

" _Hai_ , Sensei," the boys chorused, but it was clear that all the joy had just been drained from this fascinating new circumstance.

* * *

Driving education commenced the next morning. Despite constant interruptions from Donatello to explain some point of automotive engineering, or simply to call attention to the fine craftsmanship of the Shellraiser and his own extraordinary talent in having created it, Splinter methodically taught his sons how to operate a motor vehicle. Day by day, they covered the accelerator and brake pedal, steering, signals, parallel parking, defensive driving, when and how to yield the right of way, and other important topics.

Leonardo listened alertly, Donatello scrambled to pretend he already knew everything Splinter was saying, Raphael regularly expressed his frustration that the privilege of driving came with the responsibility of following a long list of traffic laws, and Michelangelo was forever asking "What does _this_ button do?", an inquiry Splinter could not answer, since no automobile he had ever encountered before had had such a button.

Over the next several weeks, Splinter patiently guided the boys through daily classroom instruction, during which period the Shellraiser did not move from its spot in Donatello's lab. The first time he turned the key in the ignition, teenage excitement rose to a fever pitch. But he only explained the lights on the dashboard and the perils of dry steering, and then turned the engine off again.

The wheels of the Shellraiser continued to not turn until each son had passed an oral examination on the basic functioning of the vehicle and the rules of the road, as they pertained to New York City. Only then did Splinter allow any actual driving.

Donatello insisted on going first. He had, after all, built the Shellraiser. Raphael beat him in a fistfight for the privilege, but Splinter upheld the younger Turtle's logic, granting him the honor of rolling the Shellraiser off the showroom floor, so to speak.

(Donatello panicked a little when Splinter used those terms. What if he put a scratch on his baby? He was an inexperienced driver. Maybe someone else should go first. When he looked at the choices, though - Leonardo nervous, Raphael grinding one fist into the opposite palm, Michelangelo literally bouncing off the walls - he quickly backtracked and accepted his father's offer.)

(Odd that the brilliant boy didn't seem to consider the option of allowing Splinter to drive the Shellraiser first.)

With excruciating overcaution, Donatello eased his foot onto the gas pedal and piloted the behemoth out into the sewers. Guided by Splinter in the passenger seat - who was alarmed to suddenly realize the vehicle was not equipped with a second brake - he dutifully trundled along the course that had been laid out.

Then each of the other boys did the same. At the end of the exercise, none of them had anything to say. There was no comparing notes on a life-changing experience, no enthusiastic whooping. Just quiet acceptance that this milestone, this rite of passage, was not really as momentous as young people always seemed to believe.

Splinter had rarely seen his sons in such low spirits - not when the pantry was empty at the end of a long winter, not when a battle ended unfavorably, not when they watched the finale of a favorite cartoon and realized there would be no more new episodes to look forward to.

It was disheartening, to say the least. And it made Splinter wonder whether something had gone deeply wrong in his own life.

* * *

Over these fifteen years of isolation and hardship, he had thought often of his life as a man. He had always been impetuous. Fatherhood had changed that in him - well, mostly - but it had been too late, and the legacy of his rash actions had caught up with him.

It had even been on a whim that he had bought the four baby turtles, though he had no regrets about that. He shuddered to think what it would have been like, to live alone as a half-rat, half-human monster. His sons had not only brought him companionship and joy, not only given him a purpose beyond sustaining his own wretched existence - remembering no life other than the one they had now, they had taught him much about living gracefully on the edges of civilization, on the margin between animal and human. He did not think he would have survived without them.

Sometimes he wondered about how he had repaid them. The mere fact that they had been with him when he encountered the mutagen had irrevocably changed their lives, had granted them opportunities far beyond the usual horizons of a pet shop turtle. They had known love and family. They had been given an education and access to pop culture. They were capable ninja, and each had discovered and used individual talents. Surely they had lives better than those they would have experienced if Yoshi had not adopted them on that fateful day.

On the other hand, was their home in the sewers not merely a larger, more complex cage than a terrarium? Was their daily life not harsher and more difficult than paddling around a shallow pool, basking beneath a lamp, and gulping down food placed right before their noses? And was Splinter not the warden who enforced this imprisonment, and made it more difficult yet through constant strenuous training, and forbade his sons to truly exercise their gifts in this world?

If the young Turtles - boundlessly energetic, endlessly optimistic, always making the best of the only life they knew - were so constricted and beaten down by Splinter's rules, what were the challenging conditions, amplified by his paranoia and his exacting standards, doing to himself?

It had been so long since he had truly made a reckless decision. Sometimes, his activities felt so repetitive and mechanical that he doubted whether he were still alive at all.

One night, after the boys had gone to bed, Splinter went to Donatello's lab.

Turned on the light.

And just looked at the Shellraiser.


	2. Chapter 2

Splinter tried to resist, but the freedom of motorized mobility called to him. How long had it been since he had been behind the wheel? About sixteen years, of course – living in New York City, using its excellent public transportation network, he had not driven a car for some months before that fateful day in the alley. If his mutation had been a kind of rebirth, then he was now old enough again to begin driving.

That first night, he didn't lay a finger on the Shellraiser. He only looked, thought, and then retreated to his room and tried to put the foolish idea out of his mind. But a few nights later, he found himself in the driver's seat, his hand on the ignition key. He waited until the 2:14 3 train was screaming by, then started the engine and quickly pulled out into the exit ramp Donatello had built.

He hadn't been able to tell by guiding his sons slowly around the test course, but this automobile was magnificent. It strained with power, responding eagerly to the slightest touch on the gas pedal. Splinter tested the brake, and found the stopping distance to be reassuring. He took the first corner, and the handling was… not abysmal, given that the Shellraiser was an overloaded box on wheels.

He did not dare to touch any of the buttons that had piqued Michelangelo's curiosity.

He went several times around the test track. He had not let on to his sons over the past weeks, but his memory of how to drive was rusty to say the least, and he needed a little practice before he felt comfortable braving Manhattan's streets.

As he circled the underground tunnels, he seriously considered not braving the streets at all. He could return the Shellraiser to its parking spot in Donatello's lab, and no one would be the wiser. It would surely be the more prudent decision.

But he thought again of how much he missed being reckless.

And without weighing the choices again, he opened the Shellraiser's throttle and the exit ramp's gate, and roared out into the night.

The traffic in Morningside Heights was relatively light at 3 AM, but the streets were by no means deserted. Other motorists were travelling on their own business, pedestrians were in the crosswalks, and Splinter was fairly certain he saw a few of his unmutated brethren scavenging along the curbs.

He drove slowly at first, obeying the traffic signals, changing lanes now and then to practice using his mirrors and turn indicators. Moving at ground level, and at the speed of a motorized vehicle, was disorienting. The distractions of operating the Shellraiser did not help, and before Splinter realized it, he was lost.

This was troublesome. He needed to be home by sunrise, which was not far off at this time of year. Moreover, he needed the Shellraiser to be home by sunrise, and so the idea of abandoning the vehicle and finding his way home on foot was quickly rejected.

While waiting at an interminable red light, Splinter searched the glove box, the door pouches, above the sun visor, in the emergency kit Donatello had thoughtfully stashed behind the driver's seat, and every place else that might contain useful items. He discovered an impressive variety of gear, not all of which he could identify the function of, but unfortunately, his brilliant son had neglected to provide a street map.

The car behind him honked, a long blast, and Splinter jerked up to see that the light had turned green. He drove on, taking the next right, peering at the street sign as he went by.

He knew this intersection. He could picture every rooftop between here and his home, could visualize how he would leap from one to the next either to make the best time or to stay in the deepest shadows. And yet he could not think through how he would navigate the street grid to make the same trip.

He needed to get out of the travel lane. If he stopped moving for a few moments, he felt certain he could reorient himself and plot a course back to the Lair. But where to pull over? He was inexperienced at parallel parking to begin with – it had rarely been necessary in his small hometown in Japan - and the sheer size of the Shellraiser was bound to make the maneuver difficult even if he could find a large enough space.

Splinter circled several more blocks - which only served to further make him lose track of where he was - before he spotted a line of delivery trucks bringing their various goods to the back of what may have been a restaurant. A truck in the middle of the line was just pulling out, having finished unloading whatever it carried. Splinter eased up behind it, putting on his turn signal to indicate he wanted to take its place.

Probably this was a delivery zone and not a legal place to park the Shellraiser, even momentarily, but no one paid Splinter any mind as he pulled up alongside the truck in front of the newly open space, and gingerly began to back in.

Ever so slowly, he reversed towards the curb, then straightened the wheel. The Shellraiser had no back window, so he had to rely on the side mirrors to judge how close he was to the truck behind. He was so intent on gauging the narrowing distance that he lost track of the truck in front, until a horrible screeching sound brought it back to his attention.

He had just scraped the Shellraiser's passenger door against the metal ramp extending from the back of the delivery truck.

In a panic, Splinter threw the Shellraiser into Drive and took off down the street. It was through either adrenaline or sheer luck that he found his way back to the hidden garage door, and a minute later he was carefully lining up the Shellraiser with its previous position.

Dread churned in his stomach as he turned off the engine, climbed out of the cabin, and edged around the Shellraiser's enormous grille.

Right across the passenger door was a scratch nearly the length and width of his tail.

Splinter seized one of Donatello's oily rags and rubbed at the scratch, but this only caused more paint to flake off around the edges. He considered trying to paint over the damage, but he doubted his ability to make the repair job blend in, and anyway he was running out of time.

In desperation, he positioned Donatello's chair just at the back end of the scrape, trying to make it look as if the furnishing had rolled across the floor of its own accord, crashing into the Shellraiser and damaging it.

Splinter did not think his sons would be fooled.

He was going to be in so much trouble.


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm sorry!" Donatello said, for what was, by his careful calculations, the umpteenth time. "I really thought the Shellraiser would be fun."

"And yet you're the one who started the idea of driving lessons," Raph pointed out. "Way to go, Donnie."

"I thought it would take maybe an hour, and then I was going to let you all drive!" Don defended himself. "It was _Leo's_ idea to involve Master Splinter."

"Well, excuse me for thinking we shouldn't operate heavy machinery without proper training!" Leo shot back.

"There's no need to argue, my bros," Mikey said soothingly. "We are all -"

"My baby!" Don shrieked.

"- Donatello's baby," Mike finished, in the same even tone. Then he blinked, proving that sometimes he did listen to his own words. "Wait, what? How's that work?"

"No, the _Shellraiser!_ " Don said, in only a slightly lower octave than before. "Look what happened to it!" He stared at the enormous scrape across the passenger door for a long moment, then whipped towards his little brother with a murderous glare. "Mikey!"

"Ididn'tdoit!" Mike blurted, cringing before his brother's fury. "Seriously, D, I didn't!"

"Oh, and I suppose that chair just put a huge scratch on the Shellraiser all by itself?" Don asked, pointing at his own desk chair, which was sitting innocently just next to the van's bay door.

"Indeed, that could be exactly how it happened," said Splinter, who had just appeared out of nowhere.

"No it could not!" Don replied. " _That_ chair could not possibly have put _that_ scrape in the Shellraiser, unless it struck the paneling with extreme force, which it could not have done unless -" And he turned to Mike again with that killing look. "- someone was _chair-surfing_ on it, perhaps?"

"Well, it wasn't me." Mike crossed his arms and stared Don down for a long moment of silence. Then he glanced to either side. "Why are you all looking at me like that? Couldn't it have been _someone else_ chair-surfing irresponsibly?"

Splinter, Leo, and Raph all looked at each other.

"Having a hard time picturing it," Raph said.

"Raph does lots of things irresponsibly," Leo said, rubbing his chin, "but he's usually too busy with _truly_ reckless behavior to waste time chair-surfing."

"Gee, thanks," Raph said.

"No one's even looking at me," Don said.

"And it certainly could not have been me," Splinter said, just ever-so-slightly too fast. "Michelangelo, perhaps you did it while you were asleep, and do not remember. Even so, there must be a punishment." He folded his hands behind his back and looked down at his sons - Michelangelo still wearing his protest on his face, Donatello clearly hoping for a draconian pronouncement. "You will repaint the Shellraiser and make it as good as new," Splinter decided.

"That's not a punishment!" Don objected.

"I didn't do it," Michelangelo said, his head raised and his voice not. "This is totally bogus and unfair. But I'm not gonna complain, because I like painting and anyway I'm a nice guy and I don't mind fixing Donnie's stuff."

" _You_ fixing _my_ \- " Don spluttered, then went back to his earlier point. "Sensei, that's not a punishment! He just said he likes painting!"

"Well, I could order him to scrub the floor in here," Splinter said, turning smoothly towards the exit. "But I do not think you want him spending any more time in your lab than necessary."

Don didn't have an answer to that, but Leo spoke up as Splinter moved to leave. "Master Splinter, where are you going? Don't we have driving lessons today?" He glanced at Don. "You can drive a car when it's scratched, right?" When Don just stared back at him, dumbfounded, he raised one fist to his chest and continued. "We have to practice driving a damaged car! Someday we might encounter less-than-ideal driving conditions, and we need to know how to deal with them!"

Splinter paused in the doorway, but he did not turn back. "There will be no driving lessons today," he said. "You are dismissed."

By the time Raphael got over his shock, Splinter was already gone. "He can't cancel lessons!" Raph said, to the remaining occupants of the room. "Can he? I mean, he never has before, which makes me think he's not capable of it."

"Did anyone else think Sensei was a little off this morning?" Mikey asked. "And I don't just mean the total travesty of justice against yours truly."

"What are you complaining about?" Don asked bitterly. He thrust a can of paint into Mike's hands. "Get to work, if you can even call it that. And you'd better paint the Shellraiser back to _exactly_ the way it was. None of your dumb _murals_."

"Fine," Mike said, already twisting the paint-caked lid off the half-used can. "But don't say I didn't offer you the coolest car on the road."

"Technically, you didn't," Don said, even as he turned to resume his work on some non-Shellraiser-related project.

Mike deliberately leaned into Don's space to grab a paintbrush from the old mayonnaise jar on the desk. "D," he said, "I am offering you the coolest car on the road. Just picture it. It would -"

"Look exactly like that?" Don asked, shoving Mike out of the way and then snatching up some complex schematics before a drop of paint could spill on them. It was clear what he was referring to, though. "The Shellraiser can't be improved, Michelangelo. It's perfect. Except for that scratch on the door, which you could have already fixed, immediately followed by getting out of my lab. And why are _you_ two still here?" he demanded of Raph and Leo.

The older brothers exchanged a look. "We don't know where else to go," Leo said. "We always have training at this time."

"We can't do anything else in the morning," Raph agreed. "It would just be wrong."

"You could go check on Sensei," Mike suggested. His paintbrush was dripping a pale yellow splotch on the floor, and none of the pigment had yet touched the Shellraiser. "I'm telling you guys, something's not -"

Don retrieved his peripatetic chair and propelled Mike into the space it had just vacated. "Get to work, Mikey."

"Okay, but don't say I didn't -"

"MIKEY!"

By lunchtime, Leo and Raph were able to resume their daily routine, Donatello had failed to make meaningful progress in his efforts to assemble a tiny video camera, Mike had restored the Shellraiser to its former glory, and everyone had forgotten about Splinter's strange behavior.


	4. Chapter 4

_Leonardo had been the first to figure it out._

 _"Sensei," he had said one day. "If there's only four elements -" he looked at his stubby fingers "- and we each got a different one -" he gestured around to himself and his brothers, before fixing Splinter with his unnervingly insightful gaze "- then_ you _must have the same as one of us."_

 _Three pairs of eyes had turned downwards, as Leonardo's brothers worked out the logic on their own hands. Then, one by one, three questioning faces turned to Splinter, to await his response._

 _"That is correct," he had said with quiet finality, as if this were a full answer to Leonardo's question._

 _"But which one?" Leonardo had asked. Then he brightened, smiling with cheerful confidence. "Mine, right? You're the same as me."_

 _"No, he's like me," Michelangelo disagreed. "That's why I'm his favorite."_

 _"I did not -"_

 _Splinter had tried to protest that he did not have a favorite son, but his words had been drowned out as each of his four children proudly proclaimed that_ they _were the one to possess the same chi nature as their father._

 _"What's the answer?" Donatello had asked finally, his soft voice buoyed above his noisier brothers by the urgency in his tone._

Splinter had evaded the question that day, and still had never told his sons the answer. It amazed him that they had never managed to see past his carefully controlled exterior and discover the fire burning underneath. Through hard lessons over many years, he had learned to cultivate the steadiness of earth, the openness of air, the resilience of water. But it still was the passion of fire that most strongly drove his actions.

(Often, when he counseled Raphael about directing his energies more mindfully, he wondered if he was doing his most emotional son a disservice by not sharing this connection with him. How much would it help the young Turtle, so often lost in the pull of his own feelings, to know that his father had struggled with the same challenges, and had overcome them? But every time Splinter came close to telling Raphael his secret, he feared what it would do to his relationships with his other sons, and he said nothing.)

One would have thought that the alarming end to his first adventure with the Shellraiser would have quashed his interest in driving it again, but rather, it only fanned the flames of his desire to be on the road once more. The rare taste of freedom had been exciting, and, much as Splinter tried to deny it to himself, there had been a satisfying thrill in successfully framing Michelangelo for the damage. Those with a fire nature had a strong sense of justice, and Splinter knew he would have to make it up to his youngest at some point. But maybe he could sneak out just a few more times before he admitted to his sons what he had done.

So it was that, a few nights later, he climbed into the gleaming-again Shellraiser and once again rumbled out onto the streets of New York.

In his younger years, he would have undertaken this second outing much as he had the first: unprepared and trusting his instincts to carry him through safely. But he was a grown man now, and experience had taught him that this was not always the best approach. He had spent the past days consulting his earth aspect, and it had advised him to learn from the previous foray and pack a map. This he had done, and thus equipped, he rolled up the exit ramp confident that this night's cruise would go better than the last.

Indeed, it did. Pausing periodically to check his location and confirm that he knew how to get back home, Splinter drove the streets for hours. He motored down Central Park West, rode along Wall Street - where the stock markets were closed, but bright numbers still scrolled to announce the action on the Nikkei - and wound his way along the local lanes of the Lower East Side.

He considered visiting Queens, but decided not to risk a trip through the Midtown Tunnel's toll plaza. Similarly, he ruled the Bronx to be out of bounds, at least for the time being. It did not occur to him to go to New Jersey.

He was out nearly until sunrise, without incident. When morning approached and the streets began to fill with buses and taxis, pedestrians and cyclists, Splinter pointed the Shellraiser home. It was a wonder that no one seemed to notice him turn the huge vehicle down a side alley, open a hidden garage door, and disappear down a ramp, but then, this was New York, where one could not live for long without seeing every traffic maneuver imaginable.

Splinter returned the Shellraiser to its spot, and this time he was certain it was in perfect condition. No one would be able to detect that he had taken it for an all-night joyride.

* * *

After the single interruption of several days prior, daily driving lessons had resumed. Splinter had begun allowing his sons to ride in the back seat while their brothers drove around the closed course, and this new excitement had helped to swiftly erase the unprecedented cancellation of training from their minds.

As with other aspects of the Turtles' education, Splinter regularly varied the order in which his sons lined up to attempt the tasks he set for them, but on this morning, it was Leonardo whom he chose to practice driving first.

"You may begin," Splinter said, once they had all taken their places, and, as usual, Leonardo fastidiously checked everything in the cabin before touching the gas pedal.

In fact, on this occasion, he didn't touch the gas pedal at all. "Stop!" he cried instead. "Abort mission!"

"What is wrong?" Splinter asked in alarm. The previous night he had turned on the headlights and - with great trepidation - used the radio, but he was certain he had set all the controls back to exactly as they had been. Leonardo could not possibly have spotted anything out of place.

As Splinter wracked his mind for what evidence he could have forgotten to erase, Leonardo pointed to a single readout on the Shellraiser's overcrowded dashboard. "This parameter is unacceptable," he said. "I'm not sure we have enough fuel to complete our objective."

"How is that possible?" Donatello asked from the back seat. "I know the Shellraiser is a gas hog, but I just filled up the tank the other night."

"Perhaps the tank has a leak," Splinter suggested, and immediately cursed himself for offering such an implausible explanation. His fire nature was panicking. He needed to call on his air aspect to provide a creative solution to the problem, but that spirit was flighty even for those to whom it came naturally, and at this moment it was nowhere to be found.

Indeed, Donatello scoffed at the idea. " _My_ Shellraiser, leak?" he said, in an offended tone. "Never." Still, he unbuckled his seat belt and climbed out of the van, kneeling to peer under the chassis. "I don't see any puddle."

"Perhaps the meter is incorrect," Splinter said, in desperation.

" _Don's_ Shellraiser, have an incorrect meter?" Raphael said, mocking his brother to avoid showing his pride in Donatello's workmanship. "Never."

"Can't we just refill it?" asked Michelangelo. True to his water nature, he was more interested in fixing the problem than in seeking the cause or assigning blame.

"My reserves are empty," Donatello said, standing up and gesturing to the metal drums arrayed near the door of his lab. "I'll have to scavenge more."

"Please do so," Splinter said, barely managing to moderate his tone to hide his personal interest in the speedy acquisition of more fuel for the Shellraiser. "Donatello, as we will not be able to practice driving today, perhaps instead you can teach us something about engine repair."

Ah, _there_ was his air nature. Splinter paid careful attention as Donatello doled out information that might help him resolve future problems with the Shellraiser before his sons realized anything was wrong.

"I'm sensing a pattern," Splinter overheard Michelangelo say, after the lesson concluded and the Turtles filed towards the kitchen to find some breakfast.

"Yes," Donatello replied. "Engines are completely logical."

"Who said anything about engines?" Michelangelo asked. "Or logic? I'm talking about _people_ , bro."

"Not following," said Donatello, who often seemed to regard _people_ as only useful for providing praise on his latest technological accomplishment.

"Something was wrong with the Shellraiser again," Michelangelo explained. "Master Splinter was making up weird excuses again." He paused, but no one said anything. "Do any of you think there's a _connection?_ "

"Nope," said Raphael.

"Not me," said Leonardo.

"Let it go, Mikey," said Donatello. "We all know _you_ scraped the Shellraiser, and you're probably responsible for the missing gas, too. I just haven't figured out how, yet."

"Maybe he drank it," Raphael suggested.

"I didn't _drink_ it!" Michelangelo protested.

The conversation devolved into jokes about how only a steady supply of diesel fuel could explain Michelangelo's endless energy, and Splinter crept away before anyone noticed him eavesdropping.


	5. Chapter 5

Over the following days, Splinter subtly arranged matters so that Donatello would have opportunities to procure more gasoline for the Shellraiser. At the same time, he quietly procured his own supply, so his sons would be none the wiser after his next excursion.

There was no doubt in his mind that there would be a next excursion.

Indeed, his chance came within a week. His sons, who still seemed to suspect nothing, had gone to bed, leaving their father free to indulge his urge to be free-wheeling and irresponsible.

With greater confidence than on the previous outings, Splinter started the Shellraiser and piloted it out onto the streets. As soon as he was safely away from the Lair and out of his sons' earshot, he began pressing buttons on the control panel. This made him somewhat nervous, but it was a calculated risk: during the driving lessons of the past mornings, Splinter had found excuses to inquire about the function of many of the switches and levers on the Shellraiser's dashboard. Donatello had been happy to explain at length what each one did, and Splinter had carefully memorized which would be safe to press.

He began by adjusting his seat, the mirrors, and the temperature in the cabin. Another button press caused smooth jazz to stream from the speakers. A knob, when turned, caused the background image on the dashboard's built-in display to change: Donatello grinning, Donatello posing with his bo, Donatello wearing a strange helmet covered in wires and light bulbs, Donatello mid-scream with Michelangelo doubled over in laughter.

And then, his memory failed. Did this toggle switch change the speedometer from miles per hour - still an unfamiliar system to him - to a reading in kilometers? Or did it activate Stealth Mode?

Deciding that neither would be disastrous, Splinter cautiously flicked the switch.

Immediately, the ice cream lamp in the back of the van lit up and began to play an unsettling jangly tune.

Between his surprise at this unexpected outcome and the sudden glare on the windshield, Splinter momentarily lost control of the vehicle, as he tried to stay in his lane and stop the creepy music at the same time. His movements, usually so accurate, could not find the correct switch on the crowded dashboard, and he accidentally hit the wrong one.

The whole Shellraiser jolted as a manhole cover went whizzing out of the front grille, decapitating a fire hydrant, which began fountaining water all over the street. The unwieldy vehicle skidded through the rapidly deepening puddle, and Splinter abandoned fumbling for the switch that would turn off the ice cream lamp, instead turning all of his focus to the task of not hydroplaning into a building.

"Activating anti-lock brakes!" shouted Donatello - or, a recording of him, Splinter realized, but not before he reflexively whipped around to see how his son had gotten in the van and whether he was wearing his seat belt. In that moment of distraction, the automatic braking system interacted poorly with Splinter's attempts to steer, causing the Shellraiser to make an unintended 180 and begin sliding backwards down the street.

By now lights were going on in all the nearby apartment buildings, and also all over the dashboard. Donatello loved alarm systems, and had equipped the Shellraiser with many of them, and they were all going off now as they detected that the vehicle had made a sharp departure from normal operating conditions.

Splinter slammed his paw on the Emergency Stealth Mode button, which Donatello had thoughtfully located in the center of the dashboard, right next to an enormous label. It was practically the only control in the entire Shellraiser that could be identified without the assistance of the 400-page instruction manual Donatello claimed he was almost done writing. Possibly the Emergency Stealth Mode button was the only control that could be identified _with_ the help of the instruction manual, since Donatello's idea of "writing" was an unpunctuated mass of misspelled technical terms, accompanied by crowded diagrams which no one but him could decipher.

All of these thoughts shot through Splinter's mind in the fraction of a second before the ice cream lamp ceased its tinny melody and the warning systems went dark.

Splinter took a single breath of silence. One breath was all he needed to refocus and begin a new plan of action. But before he could complete that one breath, his sensitive ears picked up the sound of an approaching siren.

Either Donatello had not thought to include a system that could detect police cars in pursuit, or that feature was being blocked by the Emergency Stealth Mode. At any rate, Splinter did not need it. What he needed was an escape.

He hit the gas and peeled out down the road, the Shellraiser's tires throwing up a huge rooster tail as the destroyed fire hydrant continued to pump water onto the pavement. There was no way he was going to evade detection. The Shellraiser was a huge, easily identifiable vehicle, and unless it could become invisible - a feature Donatello surely would not have neglected to mention - it could not possibly go unnoticed by even the most indifferent observer.

There was also no chance the Shellraiser could outrun a police cruiser. When asked about how fast the vehicle was, Donatello had bragged about its Ultra Boost mode. But when Raphael pressed for specifics, Donatello had muttered some esoteric calculations, which everyone knew was his way of admitting that the Shellraiser was not really very fast.

What the enormous armored vehicle did have going for it was that it was bulletproof, it could smash through a concrete wall, and Splinter now knew how to fire the manhole covers.

In the rearview mirror, he saw the police car coming up behind him. He let it come, ignoring the flashing lights, the blaring siren, and the officer's clear gestures for him to pull over.

A second cruiser tried to cut him off at an intersection. He barreled through it, blasting the little Crown Vic out of the way as if it were a toy. A thrill of power shot through Splinter, and for a fraction of a second he understood why his son built such machines. Then the insight was gone, and he felt only incomprehension at Donatello's constant lust for bigger, stronger, more heavily-armed technology.

He sped on. The city made confusing echoes, but he could hear more police cars converging on him - at least three, not counting the one that was still following. He was not unaware of the danger, and yet a strange calm came over him. He felt in complete control, the way he felt when he was facing an enemy, had assessed their style and skill, and _knew_ he was going to win.

His hand seemed to move of its own accord. With the flick of a switch and the press of a button, the rear launcher was activated. A manhole cover sliced into the pursuing cruiser, flipping it onto its roof as the back of the car tried to continue moving while the front came to an abrupt halt.

Splinter swung a hard left and hit another button, causing a cascade of caltrops to tumble from a hatch under the Shellraiser's rear bumper. It briefly occurred to Splinter to wonder how he was going to explain the missing weaponry to his sons, but he had other problems to deal with first.

Two police cars went skidding to a halt, their tires blown out by the trap Splinter had laid. The third, by sheer luck, safely navigated the minefield and continued its pursuit.

Splinter swerved right, hit a combination of controls, and took out a lamppost with a well-aimed manhole cover. The Shellraiser sped under the slowly-toppling light pole. The cruiser tried to accelerate through the narrowing gap, but it was not fast enough. As Splinter raced around another corner, he glimpsed the black-and-white being crushed as the streetlight hit the pavement, exploding in a shower of sparks.

Splinter turned for home; he needed to hide the Shellraiser until the police gave up. He was not confident the department would not send more officers in pursuit - and he wasn't entirely sure they hadn't already.

Indeed, he was nearly back to the hidden garage when a BearCat intercepted him, forcing him to make a quick right. He could have rolled right over the sedans and he thought the Shellraiser was a match for the military-style vehicle as well, but he didn't want to risk causing damage he wouldn't be able to fix by morning. The Shellraiser was designed to go through a concrete wall, but not to go through it unscathed.

At this distance he could have made a run for the Lair, but he didn't want to lead the police to the concealed ramp, where they might stake out his family's home or try to force entry. He would need to lead them away and then circle back unseen.

"Police frequency detected," Donatello's voice said, and then someone unfamiliar shouted, "What the hell is that thing?"

Splinter hit the brakes.

The BearCat nearly shot past him before pulling up at a strategic offset. "Don't move!" someone shouted. "Stay in the car!"

Three SWAT team members in flak jackets and helmets got out of the BearCat, moving quickly into position around the Shellraiser. Each had a gun raised and pointed at the driver's door. Cautiously, they began to approach.

And then, in quick succession, each crumpled to the ground.

"You do not want to know what the hell I am," Splinter said, as he stood over the fallen soldiers.

Calmly, he climbed back into the driver's seat, drove home, parked the Shellraiser, refilled the gas tank from his hidden reserves, reset the controls, and went to bed. He doubted it would take long for Donatello to notice that some of his beloved onboard weapons were missing, but this time he was prepared, and would be sure to have a convincing story ready.

He didn't notice a tiny device blinking on Donatello's workbench.


	6. Chapter 6

Captain Ryan thrust out a powerful arm towards the ship's viewscreen, pointing at the pulsing orange sphere that filled a very large percentage of the visible space - an alarming percentage, some might say, but Captain Ryan was never alarmed. "Set course for that orange star," he ordered.

"Captain, that is a red giant," the ship's green scientist said placidly. "It is likely to explode very soon."

"Dr. Mindstrong," said Captain Ryan, in his most commanding tones, "I said _set course for that orange star._ "

"Captain," Dr. Mindstrong said again, "perhaps you do not understand. The supernova will destroy the ship and everyone on board."

Captain Ryan put his hands on his hips and continued staring at the hazy glow on the viewscreen. "Then that will be our final … great … adventure."

"This is the best show that has ever been on television," Leonardo proclaimed. It was unclear whom he was speaking to. Raph was sprawled on the couch next to him, and Mikey was stretched out on the floor, feet kicking cheerfully in the air, but both of them already knew that _Space Heroes_ was their eldest brother's favorite cartoon. If asked, they would have said without hesitation that he was a total fanboy.

"Yeah, we got that," Raph said. "Where's Donnie? He usually likes this stuff too."

"Hey D!" Mike shouted. "You're missing _Space Heroes_!"

Donatello promptly appeared from his lab, but he did not vault onto the couch and complain about how they should have called him sooner, only to be shushed into silence, as usually happened in these kinds of situations. Instead, he paced across the stone floor, stood at the edge of the sunken living room, and looked at them all, ignoring the always-thrilling stock animation of the ship jumping into warp drive. "Guys," he said, with a deeply troubled look on his face, "I'm afraid I have some bad news."

Leo's eyes flicked back and forth desperately, as he tried to pay attention to this important announcement while not missing the climactic action on the screen. "What is it, Donnie?"

"See, I've been working on this camera for my Spy Roach," Don began, as he walked between his brothers and the television. It was unclear whether he hadn't noticed he was blocking their view, or whether blocking their view had in fact been his objective when he chose to take up that particular position.

"Your _what?_ " Raph screeched, suddenly losing all interest in the fate of the fictional starship and its crew.

"My Spy Roach," Don repeated. "I've been training a cockroach to -"

"I do _not_ want to hear this," Raph said loudly.

"Donnie, skip to the important part," Leo said, partly to spare Raph from talk of insects and partly in the hopes that he might not miss the entire second act of the episode.

"The important part," Don said, "is that I've been setting up the camera to try to find out what's going on with the Shellraiser. And – I have some bad news and some worse news."

"I don't think that's how that goes," Mike said.

"The bad news," Don went on, without waiting for anyone to decide which they wanted to hear first, "is that we owe Mike an apology. He isn't the one who's been messing with the Shellraiser. The worse news is..." He paused, not so much for dramatic effect as to rerun some mental calculations and make sure that what he was about to say was accurate. "It's Master Splinter."

"What's Master Splinter?" Leo asked, suddenly much more interested in hearing Donatello's news than in seeing the results of Captain Ryan's orders. "Is something wrong with him?"

" _Master Splinter has been messing with the Shellraiser_ ," Don said. "So yes, I would say something is wrong with him."

"Um, hello," said Mike, who hadn't heard anything like an apology yet. "I told you this, like, a week ago."

Nobody paid him any attention.

"This I gotta see," Raph said, pushing himself up from the couch. "You have video, Donnie?"

"It's in my lab," Don replied.

"Where's your roach?" Raph asked suspiciously.

"In my lab," Don said again. That was the answer to pretty much any question about the whereabouts of things he owned. "But don't worry, he's in a terrarium." When Raph still hesitated, Don rolled his eyes. "I'll go put him someplace where he can't _possibly_ hurt you, Raph."

"You can congratulate me for my genius any time now," Mike said, as they waited for Don to hide his pet bug.

"Sorry, what?" said Leo. "I was watching the ship come out of warp drive."

"Huh," said Raph. "Is the warp drive sequence always that long?"

"Ugh, you guys are so dumb," Mike said, as he bounced to his feet. "I don't know why I waste my valuable brain impulses making words at you."

"Could stop any time," Raph muttered, as he followed his little brother up the stairs to Don's lab.

"I heard that!"

Raph elbowed Leo and grinned, before he turned his attention to making sure Donnie hadn't "forgotten" to secure any of the gross crawly things he was always "experimenting" on.

"Take a look," Don said, gesturing for them all to join him around his computer. Frozen on the screen was a grayscale image of the Shellraiser, sitting quietly in the lab. Leo looked at the videotaped Shellraiser, and then at the real Shellraiser, parked at the other end of the room. It was a little eerie how similar the images were.

Don hit a key, and the screen image flickered as the video began to play. After a few seconds - Don must have paused the playback at a strategic spot - a figure entered the lab, climbed into the cab of the Shellraiser, sat in the driver's seat for a minute, and then drove off.

"What just happened?" Leo asked.

"Looked like a grand larceny to me," Mike said.

"Keep watching," Don said, and held down another button, causing the video to flicker rapidly as it fast-forwarded through time - hours, maybe - during which nothing happened. When the Shellraiser came careening back down the ramp, Don took his finger off the controls to return the playback to normal speed.

Whoever was driving the Shellraiser parked, climbed out, and moved furtively around the huge vehicle. It was hard to make out what they were doing. Leo squinted at the screen. The image was dark and grainy, but by comparing to the size of the Shellraiser, he could see that whoever was moving around it was tall. He said as much.

"And why are you looking at me when you say that?" Don asked.

"Well," Leo said, " _you're_ tall."

"Really, Leo?" Don said, in a flat, condescending tone. "Are you suggesting I set a camera trap to catch _myself_?"

"A clever ruse," Mike said. "Who would expect the car thief to catch themselves?" He stayed in that attitude a moment, projecting atmospheric noir, then pointed at the screen. "But no, that's totally Master Splinter. Just like I said."

"But that doesn't make sense," Raph objected. "Why would Master Splinter be messing with the Shellraiser? He doesn't want to have anything to do with it."

"Or _maybe_ ," Mike said, "that's what he wants us to _think_."

Leo looked at the floor, rubbing his chin. "Master Splinter doesn't really like any kind of technology. And he doesn't really like leaving the Lair. Using technology to leave the Lair just doesn't fit his profile."

Raph was studying the screen again. Don had frozen the video on an image of the mysterious figure moving away from the Shellraiser, heading towards the door of the lab. "But if that's _not_ Master Splinter, who is it?"

All the boys stood there in puzzled thought, except Michelangelo, who stood there in utter contempt for his pea-brained brothers.

"If it _is_ Master Splinter," Leo said finally, cautiously, "what are we going to do?"

"Ground him!" Raph suggested, a little too enthusiastically. "No soap operas for a week! And no cheese phone! And cleaning the dojo! I mean with a toothbrush!"

"Okay," Don said, after a shocked pause. "That was a little vicious."

Raph shrugged, crossing his arms. "What can I say? I get punished a lot. Revenge is sweet."

"I was thinking an intervention might be more appropriate?" Don proposed delicately.

"Leave it to me, bros," Mike said. "I am an excellent interventor."

"Not a word," Don pointed out.

"That's right," Mike agreed. "You guys won't have to say a thing."


	7. Chapter 7

Splinter knew what was going on as soon as his sons approached him. They only came to him like this, en masse, with somber faces, when they had something very serious that they wanted to talk about. He briefly entertained the idea that they wanted to talk about a serious topic _other than_ his secretive usage of the Shellraiser, but it seemed unlikely.

He was fully aware of his four boys shuffling not-so-stealthily, in a tight knot, across the tatami mats, but he remained seated in meditation, pretending he had not noticed them enter the room. If they wanted to speak to him, they were going to have to start the conversation, and they were going to have to interrupt his spiritual practice to do it.

Michelangelo cleared his throat. It was not a soft, polite, "Sensei I am very sorry to disturb you but there is an urgent matter that requires your immediate attention" kind of throat clearing. It was more of a "I am a famous and important person whom everyone here has been waiting with bated breath to hear from, and in a moment I might grace you all with a speech that will totally blow your minds, like word, dude" kind of throat clearing.

Splinter did not so much as twitch an ear.

"Sensei." That was Leonardo. He was trying to take a hard line that sounded like it brooked no argument, but it came out more nervous, almost petulant. "We need to talk."

"Bro," Michelangelo hissed. "I told you not to say anything. Weren't you listening to the plan?"

"Wasn't _I_ -" Leonardo started indignantly, but then he was silenced, possibly by Michelangelo's hand over his mouth.

"Sensei," said Michelangelo. "We need to talk."

Splinter opened his eyes, his expression perfectly calm. "Ah, my sons," he said. "What may I assist you with?"

The gambit didn't unsettle them as much as it might have in the past. Year by year, it was becoming more difficult to outfox the growing boys. At times like these, Splinter almost regretted sharing so much of his hard-earned knowledge with them.

The four came quickly to kneel on the mats, taking up their accustomed positions - if not their accustomed roles. If Splinter was right, it was they who were going to be delivering a lesson this afternoon. Not that he was going to make it easy for them.

(They had rarely made it easy for _him_. Revenge was sweet.)

"Master Splinter," Michelangelo began. "Is there anything you want to tell us?"

Splinter stroked his beard, his demeanor completely unhurried. "Yes," he said, and the boys all leaned forward in anticipation. "I am most displeased with the state of the kitchen. Someone has not been wiping out the sink after they wash the dishes."

The boys exchanged looks.

"Anything else?" Michelangelo prompted, in a warmly inquisitive tone. The boy was a born therapist.

Splinter adopted a sad smile that an observer in a certain frame of mind might interpret as repentance. "Did I ever tell you about the time -"

"Master Splinter," Leonardo burst out. "That's not -"

Michelangelo pressed a hand over Leonardo's mouth. "Master Splinter," he said. "You don't have to lie to us. We know what's happening." He paused a moment, and when Splinter volunteered nothing, he went on: "Wouldn't it feel better to be honest?"

Damn. These children had absorbed far too many of Splinter's best tactics. But he had learned a strategy or two from them as well. He raised his brows, feigning total ignorance, forcing his sons to make a direct accusation.

"Master Splinter," Michelangelo said, "we know you've been taking the Shellraiser."

"I have not touched the Shellraiser," Splinter said. _Strategy #1: Deny everything._ He raised his voice just slightly, showing how shocked and offended he was by this outrageous suggestion. "Why would you think such a thing, my sons? I have only gone near it to teach _you_ how to drive it." He looked at them all, lingering on each in turn. "I thought that was what you wanted." _Strategy #2: It's not my fault._ "Have I been mistaken?"

For once, Michelangelo refused to be distracted. He let these attempts to redirect the focus slide by, and stuck to his line of attack. "Donnie has a camera in his lab," he said bluntly. "We have video. We all saw you drive the Shellraiser out of the Lair last night."

"Did I?" Splinter scratched his head. _Strategy #3: I must have been sleepwalking._ "I do not recall."

Nobody seemed to buy this.

"Ah, yes," Splinter said, suddenly remembering. "I took the Shellraiser for a brief test drive to ensure it was operating correctly after the damage had been repaired. I did it for your safety." _Strategy #4: I had good intentions._

"We've all driven the Shellraiser plenty of times since the damage was fixed," Leonardo pointed out.

"One can never be too sure," Splinter replied.

"I'd already verified optimal function through diagnostics," Donatello said.

"Ah," Splinter said. "Very good."

"And knowing that I routinely do that for _all_ my inventions," Donatello continued, when Splinter offered nothing further, "you felt it was necessary to take the Shellraiser out for a six-hour 'test drive' because...?"

The net was tightening. The boys had prepared their case well. Swiftly, Splinter abandoned denial and its cousins, and moved to a completely different strategy.

"I am a legal driver," he said, in exactly the tone that Leonardo had unsuccessfully attempted earlier. "Sort of," he added quickly, when Donatello raised a finger to object. _Strategy #5: It wasn't wrong._ "I will drive if I want to. I do not see why we are having this conversation."

" _Theeeere_ ," Michelangelo said. "Don't you feel better now?"

Sometimes the boy had no sense of pacing. "Indeed," Splinter said. He hung his head, and drew his elbows in just slightly, an almost subliminal sign of contrition. _Strategy #6: I've already been thoroughly punished by the crushing sense of guilt and shame._ "I should not have taken the Shellraiser without telling you. Surely you would have liked to come with me."

"So we'll get to come with you next time?" Raphael asked hopefully.

"Of course not." Splinter snapped back to his typical erect posture, and looked down at his sons. _Strategy #7: You're not the boss of me._ "You may drive on the surface when you pass your road test. Until then, you are strictly pedestrians aboveground." He rose smoothly to his feet. "I am glad we had this conversation, my sons. It has been a burden keeping my new pastime secret. Thank you for allowing me to enjoy it in the open."

And he strode away, leaving his sons gaping at his back.


	8. Chapter 8

That day, Splinter did not wait for nightfall. He did not even wait for the 3 train. He simply started the engine, threw the Shellraiser into drive, and roared out of the sewers.

His first stop was a convenience store on a neighborhood corner. It was a simple matter to raid the snack food shelves while the proprietor carded a paying customer and then turned to the rack behind the counter to locate the desired carton of cigarettes. Nor did Splinter have any trouble liberating several cases of alcoholic beverages. A nearby sign informed him in large red letters that he needed to have been born before this date in 1991 to purchase alcohol, but it did not card him. Possibly it thought he looked much older than 21.

Splinter felt a little pang at that thought, but mostly he felt a thrill at successfully shoplifting. This was strange. He had stolen food many, many times in the past fifteen years, and it had brought up many feelings in him - shame at robbing innocent store owners, fear that he might be caught, anger and sadness that he had to resort to crime to take care of his young family, and sometimes a kind of muted satisfaction that at least he was _able_ to burglarize grocery stores and restaurant kitchens undetected, and thus keep starvation that little bit further away from his children. But never before had he felt _thrilled_.

He pushed the thought away quickly, as he loaded the beer and cheap wine and beef jerky and potato chips and cheesy puffs into the back of the Shellraiser. He needed to focus on what he was going to do next.

Starting up the Shellraiser again, he put some distance between himself and the corner store. The owner surely would not take long to notice the unaccounted-for decrease in his inventory, and it would be better for Splinter to be in another part of the city when that happened.

Some minutes later and several miles from the scene of his crime, Splinter pulled up alongside a pocket park. Through the tinted window of the Shellraiser, he scouted the users of this local greenspace.

He was not interested in the young woman pushing a baby in a stroller and trying to prevent a slightly-older child from getting too far away from her - though she was impressively calm and poised as she corralled the two small children. Also she was impressively curvy. Splinter may have been visibly older than 21, but he was not too old to appreciate an attractive woman.

The woman sitting on the park bench he found too advanced in years for his tastes. He wondered whether she might actually be closer to his own age than the young mother. The thought brought on an unpleasant sense of his own mortality, and Splinter pushed it away. At any rate, the older woman was sitting next to a man, likely her husband. Splinter was not interested in them.

Nor was he interested in the burly man in the orange vest. He was emptying one of the park's trash cans into a larger bin mounted on the back of a motorized cart. Splinter wondered whether that cart would be fun to drive.

"Are you kidding me?" Donatello shrieked in his head. "You would rather drive a _groundskeeping cart_ than my Shellraiser?"

Out of respect for his son, Splinter abandoned that idea.

And then he saw exactly what he was looking for: a tall, youthful-looking man power-walking along the park's looping path. He was alone, and looking straight ahead, but his body seemed to swell with joy at the mere existence of the path, the few trees, the clear sky, the fearless pigeons, and everything else that entered the man's sphere of awareness.

Splinter decided to enter that sphere.

Quickly, he rolled down the Shellraiser's window. "You!" he shouted, as the man walked past him at an energetic pace.

The man turned to look, and his jaw dropped - not so much in shock as in a huge smile. "Whoa!" he said. "What are you?"

"I am the best day of your life," Splinter said. He hit a button on the dashboard, and the Shellraiser's bay door unlatched itself and rolled open, revealing a fever dream of futuristic technology, mood lighting, and nutrition-free snack foods. "Get in."

"I don't need to ask any questions about this," the man said, and with even more enthusiasm than his earlier movements, he jumped into the cabin and hauled the door closed behind him. "I'm Phil."

"I am Yoshi," said Splinter. "Tell me, Phil - what is your favorite coffee shop?"

"Uncommon Grounds," Phil replied, without hesitation. "Straight ahead, right on 118th, and just a couple blocks ahead."

"You may want to put on your seat belt," Splinter advised, as he pulled back out into traffic. "The Shellraiser's cabin does not have air bags."

"Your ride is called the _Shellraiser_?" Phil said, as he did what Splinter had suggested. "That is the best name ever."

"Thank you," was all Splinter said in reply.

Even with New York traffic, it took them only a few minutes to reach Uncommon Grounds. On the one hand, the Shellraiser needed a lot of space to change lanes. On the other hand, when the Shellraiser indicated it wanted to change lanes, just about every other vehicle on the road slowed down to make room. Driving an enormous armored van did have its advantages.

"Who should we invite to join us?" Splinter asked, when they pulled up in front of the cafe.

While Splinter was driving the few blocks, Phil had quickly learned to use the Shellraiser's computer systems, and now he accessed the camera to see who was standing on the sidewalk. "How about the guy in the hat?" he said. "He looks fun."

A large black man in a Mets baseball cap was standing in front of the coffee shop's main window, a hot drink in one hand and his smartphone in the other. He was looking at the small device, and did not appear to have noticed the Shellraiser.

Again, Splinter rolled down the window. "Hello," he said.

The man looked at Splinter. Then he looked at his drink. Then he looked at the food service establishment behind him. "What the hell do they put in these fancy coffees?" he wondered aloud.

"I have a large quantity of alcohol," Splinter said, and opened the door.

The man looked at Phil sitting inside the Shellraiser, then at his smartphone, then at his life. "What the hell," he said again, and climbed into the van. "I'm Isaac."

Splinter did not ask Isaac to suggest a destination. Instead, he asked the two men whether they would like to hear some music.

"I'm always down for some tunes," Isaac replied, and Phil concurred.

Splinter touched a button. "101.1! WCBS-FM! Newww Yooork!" the radio sang, and then they were all singing to the best of the '60s, '70s, and '80s.

A few songs later, they pulled into a warehouse district, where a line of men were standing on a sidewalk, hoping for day work.

"Need one!" Splinter shouted, opening the window and the door at the same time. "No work! No pay! Free snacks!"

Most of the men just stared at him in shock - either from his appearance or from the bizarreness of his offer, or maybe both - but one shrewd-looking Hispanic recognized an opportunity when he saw one, and jumped into the Shellraiser before anybody else moved.

"Jose!" he said, slamming the door behind him.

"Welcome to the partaaaaayyyy!" Phil shouted, and they were off.

By the time they reached a tiny, little-known beach under the Manhattan-side pillar of the Brooklyn Bridge, the four men had exchanged life stories. Isaac had two small girls who were already determined to go to college, and he felt like he did nothing but work as he tried to save up enough money to provide for their futures. Jose, through little more than sheer force of will, had brought his family from Mexico, only to find that life in New York was not much better for those who spoke broken English and could not afford to live in the safer neighborhoods. And Phil worried that, although he'd squeezed every possible drop of fun and excitement out of his 20s and 30s, he was now facing the second half of his life with few resources and no stable relationship.

"Did I make bad decisions?" Phil asked, as they leaned against the outside of the Shellraiser, eating the snacks, drinking the alcohol, and watching the river. "They seemed so great at the time."

"I hear you," said Isaac. "Go to vocational school, marry a good woman, show up to work on time every day - those are supposed to be great decisions. But am I rolling with the rich dogs? No. I'm fighting with my crook landlord to fix the damn plumbing so we don't have to wash dishes in the bathtub."

"You are rolling with me now," Splinter pointed out.

"Right," said Isaac. He tried to be subtle about checking the alcohol content of his beer. "What's _your_ story, Yoshi?"

"I immigrated from Japan in 1997 after my wife and daughter were murdered, and now I am a single father of four teenage boys," Splinter said.

The men stared at him for a moment. "We're not playing 'who has it worst,'" Phil said finally.

Splinter shrugged, and ate another cheesy puff. "That is my story."

Phil offered him a box of wine.

"No, thank you," Splinter said. He gestured at the Shellraiser. "Technically, this is my son's car. I should not drive it inebriated."

Isaac nodded, understanding. "If you wreck it, he'll kill you?"

"Oh, no," Splinter said. "He will try, but I am an eighth-degree ninja master."

"Okay, not cool," said Phil, pointing at Splinter with his half-eaten stick of jerky. "We aren't playing 'Bullshit' either."

"No," Splinter agreed. "I am not."

"Maybe it's true," Isaac said. "I was a first-chair flautist in high school."

"I'm a ranked ping-pong player," said Phil, and nobody questioned him.

They all looked at Jose, who shrugged. "Walked thousand miles with baby across _el desierto_ to come to this country."

"We're a pretty cool bunch of guys," Phil concluded. "What do we have to be down about?"

"Absolutely nothing," said Splinter. "We are picnicking on the beach with our friends and no one can tell us not to."

"And to think I was just supposed to walk to the drugstore and pick up some pantyhose for my wife," said Isaac. Then he grimaced. "I should probably still do that."

"Why?" Phil challenged. "Why are you getting your wife's pantyhose? Why are you working so hard for your daughters' education? It's 2012! Let these females do something for themselves!"

"Yeah!" Isaac said. "What about _my_ future? I don't want to drop dead when I'm 57 because I'm working 80 hours every week and giving myself a heart attack." He seemed to realize then the likely health effects of the snacks and beverages in his hands, but set his features and stuck to what he had just said.

"Kids think I am at office every day," Jose said. "Work line, beach picnic, what difference to them?"

"That's the spirit!" Phil cheered. They toasted, and Splinter turned on the disco ball in the back of the Shellraiser, and they ate junk food and shot the breeze until the motorists on the bridge above began turning on their headlights.


	9. Chapter 9

"I am glad we had this conversation, my sons," said Master Splinter, as he stood easily from _seiza_. "It has been a burden keeping my new pastime secret. Thank you for allowing me to enjoy it in the open." And he swept out of the room, leaving the four Turtles in stunned silence.

In short order, that silence was broken by the sound of the Shellraiser's door slamming, and then by the Shellraiser's engine revving even more than was strictly necessary for the hulking truck to get underway, and then by the Shellraiser's triple-walled tires squealing as Master Splinter peeled out of Donatello's lab-cum-garage.

"How did we not hear that before?" Raphael said faintly, and then silence descended again. Dust motes floated gently in the light that filtered through the branches, then were sent spinning and twisting by the backdraft from the Shellraiser's rapid departure.

That interim of silence lasted for a few moments, before Don rounded on his youngest brother with an expression of severe unhappiness. "Well, that went fantastically, _Michelangelo_."

"Why are you blaming me?" Mike said, almost before anyone had actually blamed him. "I told you guys not to say anything! You messed up my plan!"

"Really?" said Leo. "What exactly _was_ the plan, Michelangelo?"

"Uh," said Mikey, who Leo increasingly suspected had never had a _plan_ as any halfway-competent leader would have defined it. "We have a nice talk and everyone feels better?"

"This is why you don't get to make the plans," said Leo. "I make the plans. I'm the leader."

"Oh, blah, blah," said Raph. "What makes you think you would have done any better?"

"Yeah!" said Mike, taking that as a vote of support for his own performance. "I'm telling you, Leo, that was way harder than it looked." He threw his hands in the air, the pitch of his voice rising along with them. "He used all my best moves against me! I didn't know I had trained him so well!"

"Who'da thunk," said Raph.

"Wait," said Mike, his hands still hanging in the air. "I thought you were on my side."

"What sides?" said Raph, pushing to his feet. "I just can't believe he admitted to it at all. What an amateur."

"I can't believe he's _doing_ it at all!" Leo said, trying to keep them all focused on the point.

"What if he isn't?" Don asked, causing three Turtles to look at him as if he had totally lost his mind. To the contrary, he was deep in thought, a hand propped under his chin. "I mean, wasn't. What if we just gave him the idea?"

"Well, Mikey is a bad influence like that," Raph allowed.

"I am not!" Mike said.

"Remember that time you convinced us all to eat a pizza topped with nothing but melted sugar?" Leo said, and didn't wait for a response. "Yeah. _Not_ a good idea."

"Well, either way," said Don, abandoning his own musings, "I hope we all agree he's doing it now. So… what are we going to do about it?"

Leo pressed a fist into the opposite palm, his eyes narrowing. "Wait for him to get home."

* * *

 _One hour later…_

Raph bounced a tennis ball off the blank stretch of Leo's wall to the right of the mass-produced scroll bearing the kanji for _Patience_ , to the left of the cheaply-made scroll stamped with the kanji for _Wisdom_ , and below the neatly crossed pair of bokken. He didn't say anything.

"Isn't this the part where you're supposed to say, 'Now I know how Master Splinter feels when _I_ don't come home'?" Don suggested.

"Dunno," said Raph. "Do you really think he feels vaguely bored? 'Cuz that's how I feel right now."

"Come on, you guys," said Leo. He hated being forced to wait to deliver a lecture. He kept writing and rewriting it in his head. Which, on the upside, meant that it was going to be a great lecture. But on the downside, the world had to wait longer to hear it. "Get serious. How are we going to stop Master Splinter from joyriding in the Shellraiser?"

Mike flopped backwards onto Leo's bed, staring upside-down at the huge _Space Heroes_ poster that had pride of place above the headboard. "Can't we put some parental controls on it?" he asked.

Don looked down at him - both literally and in condescension - from where he was leaning against Leo's neurotically tidy desk. "You know parental controls are controls set _by_ parents," he said.

"What if we stopped putting more gas in it?" Leo suggested.

Don shook his head. "Gas isn't that hard to get. Master Splinter would be able to refill it himself."

Raph bounced the tennis ball again. "We could take the Shellraiser apart," he proposed.

"Well, it would work," Don conceded, "but it's kind of extreme. Does anyone have any better ideas?"

Leo rubbed his chin in thought. "We could _hide_ the Shellraiser."

Don's brows lowered. "I said, does anyone have any _better_ ideas?"

"What if," Mikey said, levering upright almost as if he was levitating, his outstretched hands leading the way, "every time Master Splinter goes out with the Shellraiser, we have a bangin' party right here, until he decides he has to stay home all the time and keep an eye on us?"

"Wow," said Raph. "For once, Mikey, I like the way you think."

"Absolutely not," said Leo. "I'm vetoing this right now."

"Aw, come on!" Raph said. He caught the ball and didn't bounce it again. "Donnie, you're on our side, right? Outvote the veto!"

"There is no outvote the veto!" Leo snapped. "That's what 'veto' means!"

"Really?" Raph said, dropping the tennis ball in favor of reaching for his sai. "You want to talk about what 'veto' means?"

"Gladly," said Leo, drawing a katana.

Don and Mike didn't try to stop them.

* * *

 _Two hours later…_

"Okay," said Raph, who had bested Leo in the fight but then been forced to surrender to the dictionary app on Don's T-Phone. " _Now_ maybe I understand how Master Splinter feels."

"How do you think he feels in general?" asked Mike, who had become increasingly pensive as they awaited their father's return. He had also, not unrelatedly, increasingly wrapped himself in Leo's blankets. "I mean, why would he do this?"

"Well, according to my psychology app," said Don, who had spent much of the preceding time absorbed in his electronic device, "he may be experiencing what's called a midlife crisis. It's an episode that people - especially men - go through when they reach middle age and begin to doubt or regret their life choices. This entry says that the sufferer can be supported by helping them recognize all the good and valued things they've achieved so far, and also by helping them see that they still have opportunities for _constructive_ new adventures, and shouldn't act out in ways that could jeopardize what they already have and what they might still enjoy." He pressed a couple of buttons. "I've downloaded scripts for those conversations."

Mike blinked at his older brother. "Did you just replace me with an app?"

Don shrugged. "I've replaced pretty much everything with an app. If only I could get my T-Phone to eat for me."

"Is there an entry in your psychology app for _that?_ " Raph muttered.

"Well, I guess we'll try it," Leo said. He shot a disapproving look at each of his team members in turn. "Since none of you has a better plan." Before Mike could insubordinately point out that Leo had very recently ordered them to stop making plans, the leader continued. "Don, let's practice those scripts."

"Could you _be_ any more boring," Raph muttered, slightly more loudly.

Leo could not. He had perfected that skill long ago.

* * *

 _Four hours later…_

Three Turtles lay on the floor - not from exhaustion, although Leo had made them practice the script _one more time, with feeling!_ at least sixteen times - but rather from sheer, stultifying boredom. Those who had not long since perfected the skill regularly underestimated how taxing boredom was.

The one who _had_ perfected the twofold art of being boring and withstanding boredom sat upright on a cushion, meditating.

And listening.

Master Splinter did not pull into the garage with the same gusto with which he had pulled out of it, but it was hard to disguise the arrival of a six-ton vehicle. A subtle mode of transportation, the Shellraiser was not.

Leo opened his eyes, his calm unruffled by the exit from meditation. His brothers stirred, lethargically.

"Is that the Shellraiser?" Raph asked from his prone position.

"Do you think some other armored truck with a diesel-powered six-cylinder flat engine is being driven into our garage?" Don replied.

"It could be _our_ armored truck with a super-powered five-star curvy engine being driven into our garage _by a carjacker_ ," Mike said.

The Turtles all weighed this possibility. Then, as one, they moved to the door of Leo's room, which resulted in an uncomfortable jam-up within the narrow frame.

"Boys!" Master Splinter shouted from the steps in front of the lab, when he saw them. "The Shellraiser needs a complete tune-up before I can drive it again! The satellite TV package must be upgraded! The snacks must be replenished! And the vomit stain must be removed!"

So saying, he paced into his room and slid the _shoji_ doors shut with a decisive _snap_.

Again, silence was the only possible response. Until:

"Donnie," said Raph. "I knew I was going to say this someday. I just didn't know it was going to be in this context: You have created a monster."

"How is this _my_ fault?" Don shrieked.

Leo didn't stick around to hear that argument.

* * *

"Sensei?" He inched the elaborate doors open just a fraction.

Inside, Splinter was contemplating an object Leo had never seen before. It appeared to be an item of clothing, but it was nothing like Splinter's usual robe. Leo was no judge of outfits, but in his opinion, the garment didn't suit his sensei at all.

"What is it?" Splinter said brusquely.

Leo edged into the room through the smallest possible crack, which was not very small, given the mass of his carapace. Sometimes, being a Turtle made it hard to pull off a dramatically appropriate entrance.

"Is it our fault?" he asked softly. "Are you doing this because of us?"

Splinter looked at him, then seemed to look through him, then looked away again, stuffing the strange new clothes into a trunk.

"No," he said. "This has nothing to do with you, Leonardo. Or your brothers. This is what adults do. There is nothing to discuss."

Leo thought about the lecture he'd been preparing all day. He thought about the scripts he had rehearsed. He felt very young, and totally unequipped to deal with any of this.

"Okay," he said quietly. "Good night, Sensei."

And, knowing that all of his younger brothers had called 'not dibs' on cleaning the vomit stain - or shortly would - the dutiful son went to do as his father had asked.


	10. Chapter 10

The next time the Shellraiser hit the streets, it literally vibrated with power - not to mention the groovy tunes of an upbeat soundtrack Splinter had ordered Michelangelo to put together. He was about to prove that he had the best wheeled conveyance in New York.

He knew where to find the closest competition. Raphael had often swooned over the souped-up bikes and low-riders that congregated in Central Park, where the sunken streets assured that no pedestrians would get in the way.

Splinter was no longer afraid of being seen - or heard. The Shellraiser could outrun, overpower, or vaporize anything that tried to stop it. On the off chance that he became separated from his vehicle, Splinter was not so helpless on foot. And so he cruised up and down the streets at leisure, blasting his music and casually exercising the armored truck's special features.

He also no longer feared all the buttons and switches on the Shellraiser's dashboard. Turning the tables on his sons, he had demanded that Donatello give him a lesson in the onboard systems. The child had kept trying to shift the conversation to some topic that began with, "Um, Sensei, we understand you're going through a change of life…" but all Splinter had to do was ask "What is _this_ button for?" and Donatello's attention was instantly refocused.

What could his sons understand about a change of life? Yoshi's life had been going more or less as he had always imagined: he was an honored member of his clan, he had married the woman he had long been in love with, he was raising a child and contemplating another. Then Saki had changed his life irrevocably, destroying everything he had worked for, everything he had dreamed of. And then, just when he was beginning to recover a shadow of what he had lost - a job at a faceless company, an apartment in a strange country, a bowl full of reptilian pets - his life had changed again, in a way that was not supposed to exist outside of the folk tales his parents had told him when he was a boy.

He had tried every remedy prescribed by those folk tales for reversing _yokai_ curses and other mystical misfortunes: he ate the seeds of certain fruits, and swam in ponds by moonlight, and prayed to the gods, and sought the favor of women. Nothing had worked. In shame, in fear, in self-loathing and desperation, he had taken to the sewers, where he raised his new children (he had never wanted _four_ ) and tried to keep his life from ending altogether.

No more. There was nothing that could happen to him that was worse than what he had already suffered. He was the lowest of the low - a rat - but now he rode in style, in a private vehicle the height of a city bus, with a plush interior and seat warmers and a top-of-the-line sound system. And everybody was going to know it.

He touched a button. The window slid smoothly into the door panel, and music that never went out of style rolled over the motorists assembled along the 79th Street Transverse, leaning on their motorcycles and convertibles as they waited for the evening competition to start.

"Holy crap!" shouted one of the nearest. "What are you?"

"Who cares?" said another. "What's he _driving?_ "

It was true that nothing quite like the Shellraiser ever came to these unsanctioned street races. The competitors here were more interested in power in the sense of speed and acceleration, than power in the sense of being able to blow through concrete barricades without slowing down. Some of those present were already laughing, assuming that this newcomer would be trundling through their dust cloud within seconds of the race starting.

Splinter was unfazed. "Excuse me," he said, over the pulse-quickening guitar solo pouring in crystal clarity from the surround speakers. "Where do I enter?"

"Beginners always get first race," said a dark-skinned woman with a nasty sneer. "Just be at the starting line in five minutes."

Splinter chose to stay with his vehicle. While these speed enthusiasts may have regularly congregated for the express purpose of breaking dozens of traffic laws, they had their own kind of honor, which among other things specified that none should jack another wheels while the other was socializing some distance away. Nevertheless, Splinter was not here to socialize. He was here to _win_.

He waited three minutes, then rolled forward to the starting line, which was marked by two experienced racers holding glowsticks. He pulled up alongside an older man in an impeccably restored antique car. On the other side of that driver was a young woman astride an inexpertly modified commercial motorcycle.

These were not the competitors Splinter was looking for. He could beat them easily. He decided that he _would_ beat them easily, while still leaving something in the tank - just to wipe the smug smiles off the faces of the senior riders when he defeated them too.

He saw his opponents looking back at him, obviously trying to categorize both his vehicle and his species. Keeping his own expression carefully neutral, he returned his eyes to the road.

There was a call of " _Readyyyyy…_ " The glowsticks swept down, yellow-green arcs in the gathering darkness, and Splinter... eased ever-so-slightly onto the gas. He could hear the hoots of derision from the watching crowd as the other racers rapidly took the lead, but he paid them no mind.

The Shellraiser, as Splinter well knew - from personal experience driving the newly-upgraded van over the last few days, from Donatello's poster-sized graphs describing the precise nature of the upgrades, and most especially from Donatello's _bragging_ over what he had accomplished - was now capable of an acceleration rate that was startlingly swift for a vehicle of _any_ size. But with careful moderation of the controls, it could also behave more like one would expect for a behemoth truck: it could accumulate velocity like an oncoming freight train, gathering inexorable momentum and barreling down on anything in front of it.

This was how Splinter operated the controls.

Inch by inch, he gained ground on the other racers. The older man saw the Shellraiser coming in his passenger-side mirror, did a double-take as he remembered the huge armored car was even closer than it appeared, steered rightwards to block Splinter from passing, then thought better of that tactic and angled back to the left, crowding the young woman on the motorbike.

The third competitor, who had been completely focused on her own race, now took stock of what was happening around her. The gleaming panel of the restored antique car was practically brushing her elbow, which she now realized was probably insufficiently padded. To her left was the concrete retaining wall that prevented Central Park from sliding down onto the sunken roadway. And behind, but closer and closer every second, a road monster she had not expected to catch sight of again until after she had claimed victory in her freshman race.

Splinter resisted the urge to fire missiles at those he was about to defeat.

Another fraction of pressure on the gas pedal, another increment of speed. The Shellraiser roared up alongside the other racers, blasting them with its wind shear. Splinter could see the older man fighting to not be pushed aside by the force of the displaced air, to avoid either crushing the girl or being crushed himself by the vehicle that dwarfed his own.

And then the competition was in Splinter's blind spot, and then it was somewhere behind him, as he cruised to a narrow but decisive win, just as he had planned.

The crowd did not roar. It simply gaped.

Splinter did not know how Raphael had acquired such detailed knowledge of the rules for these races, but through continuous exposure to his son's recitations of what he had learned, Splinter had himself absorbed a broad understanding of how these unsanctioned competitions worked. For example, he knew that the losers of the night's first race were welcome to go home, improve their vehicles, and come back another time, while the winner was entitled to compete against the next-higher tier of riders on that same evening.

This Splinter did. And continued to do, easily winning every race he entered.

He stopped only when the Shellraiser's fatal weakness - its abysmal gas mileage, which Donatello had not been able to markedly improve during his frenzy of upgrades - meant that he likely would not make it home if he drove the racecourse another time.

By that point, some of the wiser racers had realized that they should treat this newcomer with respect, notwithstanding his furry visage or his unconventional ride. "Will you race again, Yoshi?" one asked.

"I may," Splinter replied. He glanced up the road, where the current champion was standing amidst a group of the most senior racers, eyeballing him and scowling. Driving skill did not necessarily equate to wisdom. "It would be most satisfying to compete in the highest-level race."

"I'd sure like to someday," said a novice rider whom Splinter had not defeated directly. "Maybe not against you, though."

"We shall see," Splinter said. "Good evening to you all." And, putting the Shellraiser in gear, he rolled off towards home.


	11. Chapter 11

News about the nightly races apparently did not spread fast or far, and Splinter was scarcely a block from the park before it was clear no one recognized him as a breakout street-racing star. They spared him hardly a second glance, and so he paid them no mind either.

Thus it was that Splinter did not notice the motorcyclist pulled up next to him at a red light. He revved the engine simply because it was enjoyable to do so, and did not realize that it had sounded like a challenge until someone spoke.

"I don't race. I just ride."

It took him a moment to figure out where the voice was coming from. The motorcyclist, barely even visible below the Shellraiser's high window, was wearing a helmet that hid their whole face, and had looked neither left nor right while making this pronouncement.

"You do not want to race me anyway," Splinter said. "I am undefeated."

The silver helmet, with its dark visor, tilted up. "Is that so?"

"It is," Splinter said. He draped an arm casually through the open window. This was a very long red light.

"How long have you been racing?" the motorcyclist asked. The voice was muffled, but Splinter was beginning to suspect it was a woman. The figure, outlined in black riding gear, did not seem quite right for a man.

"... Three hours," Splinter admitted.

The rider snorted in a distinctly unfeminine way. "Well, points for honesty."

The light changed, and Splinter began to ease forward. "Hey, wait," said the rider, ignoring the chorus of honks that immediately started up behind them. She held up her smartphone; its glowing screen seemed to be awaiting some sort of input. "I just got into town. I was supposed to be looking up a hotel, but you distracted me. Can you point me to someplace not too expensive?"

Splinter had a sudden flashback to the perversely joyful moment in which he had realized that he was doomed to spend the rest of his life hiding in the sewers, but at least he no longer had to pay New York rent. "There is no place not too expensive," he said. The light turned back to red. Someone in the line of traffic screamed expletives. The rider did not react.

"Well, damn," she said, reaching back to put a hand on the bundle packed neatly behind her seat, confirming it was still there. "Guess it's a park bench. Got a favorite park?"

"I can offer you accommodation," Splinter said. He wasn't sure why.

The rider looked at him appraisingly - or at least seemed to. "Yeah, why not?" she said, as the light changed to green again. "Lead the way."

Splinter did - though he seriously considered dropping an oil slick and speeding away from the mysterious motorcyclist. What had he just done? What kind of person would agree to such an offer? Certainly not a person he should be welcoming into his home. But it wasn't like he could allow her to spend the night on a park bench…

The next thing he knew, the rider was following him down the hidden ramp, and then she was parking next to him in Donatello's lab. With practiced moves, while Splinter watched from the safety of the Shellraiser's cabin, she dropped the kickstand and leaned the bike to rest. More than that, she checked the carefully-secured bundles, examined the tires and fenders for damage after what had apparently been a long journey, and tucked the motorcycle's key into a pocket of her close-fitting riding gear.

 _Definitely_ a woman.

Only then did she lift off her helmet, letting long black hair swing free.

"Yuki," she said, tucking the helmet against her hip. "And you're James Bond, I presume." She took a moment to look appreciatively at the Shellraiser, the ramp she had just come down, and the fantastical underground laboratory.

Splinter stepped out of the vehicle.

"Or not," said Yuki.

Splinter bowed slightly, noting Yuki's Asian features and the way she only watched him curiously, without backing away. "I am Yoshi," he said. "Welcome to my home. I hope you find it comfortable for the night."

"What is this place?" Yuki asked. Already over any shock she had experienced from seeing Splinter in the light, she set her helmet on the motorcycle seat and wandered to Donatello's desk, picking up a beaker full of something so viscous it was nearly solid.

"My son does science projects," Splinter said.

"I'll say." Yuki put the beaker down, ran her eyes over a page of scribbled notes, then moved towards the door. "Are you going to offer me something to eat, Yoshi? It's been a long day."

* * *

Over the next several hours, Splinter learned that Yuki spoke Japanese, had a dragon tattoo curled along her spine, and was in a relationship with someone in California.

"It's complicated," she said, by way of explaining - at least partially - why she'd thought nothing of not only following Splinter home, but accepting his invitation to roll out her sleeping bag in his bedroom. "We're still figuring things out."

"And where is he now?" Splinter asked.

"At home," Yuki said. "He doesn't go out much."

"Nor do I," said Splinter.

"Huh," said Yuki. "Guess that's my type."

Splinter was silent. Yuki had explained why it was not a problem for her to spend the night with a man, but he did not know how to ask why she was unperturbed by spending the night with a giant rat.

She was perceptive, and subtle, and what she said next may or may not have been an answer to what Splinter was thinking. "I don't know when I'll be in New York again," Yuki said. "I promised myself I would have a crazy adventure while I was here."

They lay down together, and Splinter was not sure he minded being called a crazy adventure.

* * *

*I'd love to claim Yuki as an original character, but she is not. She appears in the mystery novel sequels to the TV show _Monk_ , where she develops an unlikely but beautiful relationship with the title character's brother. The actor who played Monk himself went on to voice Splinter in 2k14/2k16. So it all makes sense.


	12. Chapter 12

Donatello was afraid to come out of his room.

For the past week or so, Master Splinter had been terrorizing him, forcing him to make a long list of upgrades to the Shellraiser. If he tried to refuse, his sensei had unspeakably subtle ways of getting him to change his mind. Donatello had an inborn passive-aggressive streak a mile wide, but Master Splinter was on a completely different level when it came to making someone regret displeasing him.

("Why do you need a mini-fridge in the Shellraiser?" Don had asked, though truthfully he thought it wasn't a bad idea.

"Excellent question," Master Splinter had replied. "It would be much better to have a full-sized refrigerator. I will take the one in the kitchen."

"But where will we keep our food?" Don asked.

Master Splinter shrugged, already climbing into the back of the Shellraiser to contemplate which console he should order Donatello to tear out, in order to make room for the bulky appliance. "I suppose you can go back to keeping it in the cold pit," he said, referring to the hollowed-out space under the floor where they had kept their perishables before a much-younger Donatello had figured out how to pirate electricity in the sewers.)

It had long since occurred to Donatello that his brains were a valuable asset, and quite a few of his enemies would cheerfully capture and torture him in the hopes of persuading him to apply the full force of his intellect to their own problems. Now, Donatello had learned two additional things.

Number one: No, he would _not_ be able to withstand the use of torture, either physical or mental. He had caved instantly under his own father's psychological manipulations. He was in big trouble if anybody with real evil intent got their hands on him.

Number two: He had a huge blind spot about _who_ might try to take advantage of his intelligence. His brothers had been asking him to fix their toys since they were children, but no one he considered an ally had ever declared his mind a tactical objective, and gone to war to claim it, as Master Splinter recently had.

("I would like it to be an amphibious vehicle," Master Splinter had calmly stated a few days ago.

Don had just stared at him.

"I know that everything you make is waterproof," Master Splinter went on, and he picked up a beaker at random (or maybe not) and poured the contents into Don's thermos of water, resulting in a green flash and a puff of smoke.

"It took me three weeks to get that formula right," Don said, in a high, thin voice.

"Yes, your brilliance is astounding," Master Splinter said. "I am sure it will take you no time at all to render the Shellraiser capable of floating."

"Floating, sure," Don said. "But what about propulsion? Adding a propeller would require a whole new system of -"

"Ah, my son." Master Splinter clapped him on the shoulder. "I am so glad you have already thought of this difficulty. See, you are making such rapid progress. I will expect the Shellraiser to be ready for its maiden voyage on Friday."

"And if it's not?" Don asked. "I mean, if I won't do it?"

"I see I was not clear," Master Splinter said. "I will take the Shellraiser for its maiden voyage on Friday. If it cannot float or return to shore, that will be most unfortunate.")

It had occurred to Don that it would mostly be unfortunate for Splinter, who wouldn't be able to drive the Shellraiser anymore in such an event. But then, thinking two steps ahead - as he always did - it was obvious to Donatello that Master Splinter would simply make him build something else from the ground up. And so in the interests of protecting his own work, Don had feverishly attacked the outlandish task of making the Shellraiser function as a car _and_ a boat. After a few days of this he had cautiously suggested to his sensei that the upgrade might go more quickly if Splinter stopped taking the Shellraiser out of the garage for so many hours every day, and especially if he stopped returning it in such poor condition. In response, Splinter had insinuated something about Donatello's work ethic, efficiency, and technical capability. Don couldn't remember exactly _what_ his master had implied, but he absolutely couldn't let a vague accusation like that stand. He was _going_ to get the Shellraiser seaworthy by Friday.

But first, he had to leave his room.

He opened his door just as Splinter was opening his, and his jaw dropped as right behind his father came a woman he had never seen before. She was kind of old, and she wasn't ~ _*April*~_ , but allowing for those deficiencies, she was actually really hot.

Don glanced around at the neighboring doors and saw that all his brothers, in various stages of exiting their rooms, had stopped short to watch the woman walk across their living area, talking to their father. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but the woman certainly didn't seem to be here against her will.

"Hot damn!" Raph whispered, in a strangled voice. "Look at that motorcycle gear!"

"Donnie!" Mike whispered. "Will you make us some -"

" _No!_ "

The Turtles all watched as Splinter graciously escorted the woman into Don's lab. If she noticed the quartet of teenagers peering out of the shadows in the back hallway, she gave no sign.

"What are they doing?" Leo whispered.

"I don't want to know," Don said, retreating into his room. "My lab is officially a hazard zone. I'm burning it down."

He had expected to hear the Shellraiser starting, but instead it was a completely different engine that roared to life.

"She has a motorcycle!" Raph squeaked gleefully. He darted forward to go and see it, but Leo blocked his path, stretching his arms across the narrow hallway.

"You cannot go see the motorcycle lady," Leo said sternly.

"You've been hanging out with Shredder's daughter," Raph pointed out. " _I'm_ going to talk to the motorcycle lady." And without giving Leo even a second to recover from that insult, he shifted his weight onto his back foot and snap-kicked Leo in the chest.

Once Raph was running for the lab, they all had to follow. Don jumped up the steps behind his brothers and skidded into the cavernous space, just in time to see a lady on a motorcycle skid out of it. Master Splinter was standing with his hands behind his back, watching his guest depart up the access ramp.

It didn't take a whole lot of brains to get a general idea of what had just happened.

Mike's eyes bugged out of his head as he arrived at what was probably a colorful, imaginative, and not-terribly-accurate mental image. "How'd you do that, Sensei?" he asked, looking at his father in wonder.

"I am very charming," Master Splinter said, without moving his gaze from the arched entryway of the ramp. "Where do you think you get it from?"

"That's not how -" Don started, but it was clear no one was interested in hearing about how heredity worked.

"That _is_ how you get a woman to spend the night with you," Master Splinter said. He turned then, and moved towards the huge rolling doors that led to the rest of the Lair, putting a hand on Donatello's hand as he passed. "Take notes, my son. You will want to know this."

"That's _gross_ ," Raph said, perhaps somewhat belatedly realizing that it was not the lady's motorcycle his father had been interested in. "Master Splinter, you are too old for that."

"Thank you for telling me," Master Splinter replied, just before descending the lab's stairs and heading towards the kitchen. "When you are my age, I will remember you said so."

" _Ugh_ ," Raph said, not quite able to form a more coherent response.

Mike was staring straight ahead, zombie-like. "I must go learn everything Master Splinter knows right now," he said, and made a robotic pivot to the right, and walked out of the lab.

Leo reached after his youngest brother, but made no serious effort to stop him. "Mikey wants to learn something?" he asked, as though this were the most novel idea he had ever encountered.

Don's gaze ticked back and forth between each of his older brothers' faces, and, not for the first time, he wished he could see what was going on inside their minds. "You… do understand what just happened, right?" he said.

Leo looked at him blankly. "Master Splinter brought home a guest. He usually doesn't allow that. I definitely want to know what he's thinking, but I'm not sure what there is to _learn_."

"I'm… pretty sure Master Splinter slept with her," Don said delicately. When nothing registered in Leo's expression, he added, "I mean, _slept_ with her. Not like we do. Like, um -"

Raphael employed blunt and graphic language to explain what Donatello meant.

Still no reaction from Leonardo. "So...?" he asked, waiting for his brothers to go on.

"So that is what Mike wants to learn," Don concluded.

"Huh," Leo said. "Sounds boring."

Don and Raph exchanged looks as their eldest brother walked off to begin his morning training. More than one thing was very, very wrong.


	13. Chapter 13

"Is it true, Sensei?" Mike asked, as soon as he found his father in the kitchen. "Did you really have - _a hot date?_ "

"You know," Splinter said, without looking up from the tea kettle, "many years ago in Japan, I had a _wife_. And a child."

Mike did know, of course. But being the kind of Turtle who rejoiced at living in the present, he had never quite thought through what series of events must have preceded that stage of his father's life. Now, he brought his full powers as a storyteller to bear on the problem, speeding through a montage of richly-imagined scenes: Hamato Yoshi meeting a gorgeous girl. Hamato Yoshi asking Gorgeous Girl to go out with him. The first hug. An extravagant mash-up of every fictional wedding Michelangelo had ever seen. The sound of a crying baby; actual baby coyly obscured by the hood of an ornate cradle.

The visuals were outstanding, but, Michelangelo realized, there were serious holes in the plot.

As Master Splinter brought a steaming cup of tea to the table, Mike vaulted onto one of the stools and sat at attention. "I want to know all about this," he said.

"Well," Splinter said, "when the child dirties its diaper, you must -"

"Before that," Mike said.

Splinter calmly stirred the brewing tea. "Labor is a fascinating process. First, the amniotic sac -"

"No, before that," Mike said.

"In the first trimester," Splinter began again, totally unruffled by Michelangelo's interruptions, "it is common for the expectant mother to experience recurrent nausea. This is called -"

"I want to know about the fun part," Michelangelo said loudly.

Splinter raised a brow. "My son, the 'fun part' I believe you are referring to is a brief moment that is both preceded and followed by a great deal of hard work. To only be interested in the 'fun part' is very irresponsible."

"What if we learn about the fun part now," Mike suggested, "and learn about the hard work some other time?"

"Hmm." Splinter lifted the tea ball out of the cup, let it drip, and set it aside. "Somehow, Michelangelo, I am skeptical that you will return for these additional lessons."

"Don," Mike said, as two of his brothers came quietly into the kitchen and took up positions on either side of him, "tell Sensei how responsible and hard-working I am."

"Are you sure you want _me_ to do that?" Don asked, as he settled onto a stool.

With a casual motion, Mike spun a 180 on his seat. The questioning expression on his face remained completely unchanged.

"Can't think of a single example," Raph said, leaning an elbow on the table.

"Seriously, bros?" Mike asked. He looked around for another potential source of support. "Where's Leo?"

Don and Raph exchanged looks Mike couldn't quite decipher. "I think he went to get ready for training," Don said, with uncharacteristic vagueness. "Sensei, um…"

"I will tell you this," Splinter said. He contemplated the rising steam for a moment, then looked up. "My sons, my young men… it is normal for you to be interested in the 'fun part', as Michelangelo so accurately puts it. When I was your age, I too felt this way. Focused on the goal -" He looked at Donatello. "- pursuing it with passion -" His gaze shifted to Raphael. "- there were many women with whom I failed to achieve my aim. Fortunately, this practice prepared me to behave more successfully when I met a woman who was truly worth the effort." He paused in memory, then went on. "You sense that your chances are dim. You fear that women will not find you attractive, that they will think you are too stubborn -" Raph grunted. "- too effeminate -" Don opened his mouth in startled disagreement. "- too… Michelangelo."

"Aw yeah," Mike said, spinning back and forth on his stool.

"All boys think this way," Splinter continued. "And it is true that many women do think these things about the boys who approach them. When you meet a woman who sees you that way, no amount of effort will get you what you seek. However -" He stopped to take a sip of tea, even as his sons hung on his every word. "If you are patient, and if you are yourself, some day you will meet a woman who likes you as you are. That is the moment to deploy all your energy and skill. And that is the moment when you realize that the 'fun part' is truly just an instant, and what really interests you is the long, difficult process of creating and maintaining a relationship. At the moment when you want to learn how to be gracious to a woman, and how to ease her nausea, and how to assist her through labor, and how to change a baby's diaper, then you will be men." He sipped his tea again, then settled his gaze on Michelangelo. "I will be here when you are ready for those lessons."

For several minutes, the kitchen was silent, save for the ticking of the cat clock and the humming of the neon Pizza sign, while the three boys processed this information.

"Okay," Mike said finally. "But how did you get a girl to come home with you last night?"

"It is simple," Splinter replied. He set his teacup down and leaned forward over the table. Half-unconsciously, his sons leaned forward too, the better to absorb his wisdom. "I had the coolest car."

* * *

During warm-ups for training, Mike filled Leo in on the mind-blowing information he had missed. Leo listened with the same attentiveness he devoted to Donnie's remedial math lessons.

"This is life-changing," Mike concluded.

Leo looked at him, puzzled. "How?"

In response, Mike told him the whole story again, patiently repeating the facts, the same way Donnie did when his brothers failed to solve an arithmetic problem correctly.

"Sure, Mikey," Leo said at the end, and Mike didn't have a worksheet to test whether _this time_ Leo understood what he had said, so he had to let the matter go.

* * *

Mike's head swiveled back and forth as if he was watching a tennis match. In fact, he was watching Donnie run around his lab like a maniac. This never got old.

"Whatcha doing?" Mike asked.

"Master Splinter wants the Shellraiser to float!" Don said. "By Friday! How am I supposed to do that?"

"You could glue a whole bunch of rubber duckies to the bumpers," Mike suggested. "No. Better idea. Put in a button that makes a huge surfboard pop out of the grille."

"You don't understand hydrodynamics, do you," Don said.

"Nope," Mike replied, and fell silent as his brother continued rushing back and forth, picking up and then discarding one tool after another as some kind of analogous process happened inside his brain. " _Why_ does Master Splinter want the Shellraiser to float?" Mike asked, after a while.

"I don't know," Don said. "Why don't you go ask him?"

Mike did.

"I have not been to Japan in many years," Splinter replied. "It is difficult to buy a plane ticket these days. Airfare has become so expensive. If I had a watercraft, I could simply sail to my homeland."

Mike relayed this information.

Don's eyes fell out of his head. "Master Splinter wants to sail the Shellraiser to Japan? That means navigating the entire Eastern Seaboard, passing security checks in the Panama Canal, and then making a run across the open ocean for more than 8,000 miles! It's impossible!"

Mike told Splinter what Don had said.

"Many ships do this every day," Splinter said.

"They have licensed captains and experienced crews," was Don's reply. "Also, they're actual ships, not hastily-converted armored trucks."

"I am sure you will find a way," Splinter said.

"We're all gonna die," Don told Mike.

Mike decided he didn't need to share that kind of negativity with his father.


	14. Chapter 14

When he left his room on Friday, Splinter found his sons gathered in Donatello's lab, as they had been most mornings since their driver's education lessons had started. Today, though, instead of being excited to practice their driving skills, they were apprehensive about the special field trip their sensei had planned.

"Just in case I haven't been clear about this already," Donatello said, as soon as Splinter swept through the great doors, "the Shellraiser is not ready to set sail - not for a transoceanic voyage, not for a river cruise, not even to ford a moderately deep puddle. It doesn't have an adequate food supply. It doesn't have a water purifier. It doesn't have a radio rated for maritime use and it is not equipped with flotation devices."

"We're Turtles," Raphael pointed out. "We don't need flotation devices."

"Nevertheless," Donatello replied, "it's the law."

Splinter did not feel the need to facilitate a discussion on how many laws the Shellraiser was breaking already just by existing, not to mention by the way in which they had been operating it. "Come," was all he said. "It is time for us to go."

"Sensei…" Leonardo hung back, as his brothers moved to board the Shellraiser with that unquantifiable teenage mix of trepidation and enthusiasm in the face of risky acts. "I thought you said we weren't allowed to be in the Shellraiser topside until we passed our driving test."

"Consider this a pre-test," Splinter said, as he swung up into the truck's cab. "You see how I cannot allow you to drive on the roads, even for testing purposes, if you have not demonstrated that you can ride on them as a passenger."

" _Hai_ , Sensei," Leonardo said quickly, and bounded into the back of the van, clearly intent on achieving the highest possible score on this first part of his exam.

"The test begins now," Splinter said, as he pulled the door closed. "What must you all -"

"Fasten our seat belts!" Leonardo shouted, before Splinter had even finished the question. He jammed the tongue of his own belt into the buckle, then sat rigidly upright in his richly padded seat. "Are all the doors firmly shut?"

"Can I firmly shut your mouth?" Raphael grumbled.

"No warning lights," Donatello reported, after studying his console.

"Let's _roll!_ " Michelangelo cheered, and Splinter obliged.

All the nervousness Splinter had felt on his first outings was gone now. He was completely at ease behind the wheel, as he was in battle. Though the fully-upgraded Shellraiser was nothing like the basic compact cars he had driven in Japan, it turned out to be true that one never really forgot how to drive. It had all come back to him, and he was master of his vehicle.

At the same time, there was no need to show off tonight. His children were in the car, and as reckless as he might be with himself, he would never, _ever_ endanger their safety.

He wended his way patiently through the morning traffic, one ear scanning for honked horns, the other swiveled backwards to listen to his sons. At first, they marveled at the experience of being on the road, in the midst of so many other drivers. But within blocks, they realized that - just as Splinter had told them at the outset - driving was mostly about following the rules, waiting one's turn, and inching slowly towards a destination that often was not much more exciting than the journey.

"I can't believe how boring this is," Raphael said.

"It won't be in a few minutes," Donatello replied. "Please take this opportunity to re-familiarize yourselves with the emergency exit hatches."

It took more than a few minutes, but at last they arrived at the park under the Brooklyn Bridge, the same secret beach where Splinter had spent enjoyable hours with his new friends.

Or, rather, meaningless hours with his just-for-a-day acquaintances.

The conversation with his sons had gotten him to thinking. His teenage years had indeed been a time of excitement, of new discovery, of widening opportunities and magical successes and dreams of a future that seemed boundless. They had also included embarrassment, and failure, and the frustrating restrictions of obeying his parents' rules and his sensei's orders, and the consequences of irresponsible choices. In truth, he would not want to return to those days. And he was ashamed at himself for trying to recreate them in his middle age.

Adolescence, too, was just a moment. It was, now, his sons' moment: a time for them to experience and enjoy and look back on later and hopefully not regret too much. For Splinter, in turn, it was a moment to guide, to advise, to dole out carefully-measured freedom, to console when youthful adventures ended badly.

Another three decades from now, in another moment, Splinter did not want to regret abandoning his duties, leaving his sons to struggle alone through such a tumultuous period. He would not be proud of having lived his life that way.

He realized that his sons were watching him, as he sat with his hands on the wheel and his foot on the brake, staring vacantly through the windshield. Donatello had turned a decidedly abnormal shade of green, tensely awaiting the moment when his beloved Shellraiser would sink into the East River. Raphael had adopted an attitude of "I'll believe it when I see it, but more likely I'll enjoy watching you fools fail." Leonardo was obviously waiting to receive a grade on his driver's pre-test. And Michelangelo was pointing a finger in the air and saying "Anchors aweigh?" as though he had said this several times already in a more exuberant tone but couldn't stop repeating himself until he got a reaction.

Splinter shifted the Shellraiser into Park, provoking a collective sigh of confusion and relief from his passengers. "Please," he said, before anyone could ask any questions. "Help yourselves to soda."

"There's soda?" Raphael said, and wasted no time opening the mini-fridge to confirm that this was true.

"There's _nothing but_ soda?" Donatello said, when he saw the contents of the mini-fridge. "What happened to the rations I packed?"

"We will not need them," Splinter said.

"Right," Michelangelo said, as he cracked open the can Raphael had tossed him. "Because we're Turtles. We don't need rations."

"That doesn't even make sense," Donatello said, and then added "Ow" as he failed to catch the can Raphael tossed to him and instead got hit in the head by it.

"Come," Splinter said, and led his sons out onto the narrow strip of sand in the shadow of the mighty bridge.

They watched him, sipping their sodas, as he gathered his thoughts. How could he explain to his sons the realization he had come to? If his own teenage self were standing before him now, the young Yoshi would not understand his older counterpart's thinking. This, too, was part of the wheel of life. If only elders could impart to their children the things that only became apparent with the experience of years -! Splinter had spent his sons' childhoods trying to do exactly that, and he sensed he would not stop now. Someday, perhaps, he would be wise enough to remain silent and let them discover these lessons on their own. But that day was not today.

"I have not been acting my age," he began simply, "and I have not allowed you to act yours." His sons exchanged uneasy glances, and he continued. "It is time for all to be put right. We will not sail the Shellraiser anywhere today." Donatello nearly passed out as the stress that had been propping him up evaporated. "That was what _I_ wanted to do. The question is, what do _you_ want to do?"

His sons held a quick unspoken debate.

"We want to drive the Shellraiser," Leonardo replied, on behalf of his brothers. "But we're not allowed."

"I think that is not correct," Splinter said.

Another swift conversation happened in their gazes.

"We don't have our driver's licenses," Leonardo said. "We haven't passed our road tests."

"I think there is no need for that," Splinter said evenly. "You have all passed all the tests so far with flying colors." As his sons stared at him in shock, he went on. "Donatello created a magnificent vehicle and taught all of us much about how it functions. Leonardo showed utmost dedication to mastering its safe operation. And Michelangelo demonstrated responsibility by helping to keep the Shellraiser in good repair - as well as by observing that I was using the Shellraiser to sneak out at night, and by intervening to stop this unbecoming behavior."

"See?" Michelangelo said. "I _am_ responsible."

"What about me?" Raphael demanded.

As he had so often before, Splinter saw the fire burning in Raphael's eyes, mirroring his own carefully-hidden flames. Again, his spirit tugged at him to reveal this special bond to his son. But again, he banked the fire and did not let on.

"Well, we all know that you will drive the Shellraiser whether you have a license or not," he said, with a shrug. "So I may as well give you one."

His brothers had each swollen with pride at the praise their father had given them, and though Raphael's reason was more like a chastisement than a compliment, he accepted it anyway with a satisfied grin. "Sounds about right," he said.

"Make good choices, my sons," Splinter said, as the boys high-three'ed each other in celebration of this latest shared accomplishment. "This is a very serious - never mind," he said, as Michelangelo began to beatbox, using his soda can as an improvised microphone, and an impromptu dance party broke out on the beach.

They would make their own mistakes, Splinter reminded himself. He could not ensure - no parent could ensure - that the children's safety would never be endangered. He could only set guardrails, and recognize that sometimes they would be broken, and do his best to limit the damage. And so to that end, he chaperoned the party, subtly herding his sons one way and then the other to protect them from the eyes of passing joggers, and the steady stream of motorists speeding overhead, and those who, being lucky enough to own an actual ship, were out on the river.

When the supply of soda ran out and the boys had satisfied their need to rejoice, Splinter gathered them at the side of the Shellraiser. But, instead of climbing into the cab, he held up the key.

"Now," he said. "Who wants to drive home?"

All four of his sons leapt forward, and Splinter froze that moment in his mind. It had been worth all the work of giving driving lessons, and it would be worth all the work of monitoring the boys' use of the Shellraiser. Splinter held the memory, and stored it right alongside the moment when his own father had held out a similar key to him.

 **End**


	15. Epilogue

The Lair was silent, save for the old broom brushing against the stone-tiled floor. Leonardo was out driving – very responsibly, no doubt – Raphael was sleeping after having been out driving most of the night, and Donatello was poring over thick textbooks in his lab. Splinter had given them all a break from their regular chores for a little while, and so it was he who was sweeping up the tracked-in dirt, the dropped pizza crumbs, the deceased insects, and all the other assorted small detritus that constantly accumulated in their home. Michelangelo was watching him from above, swinging his legs off the edge of the spiral ramp that hung over their living area.

"I've been thinking," said Michelangelo, tapping against the silence, and Splinter almost held his breath waiting to see how badly the peace and quiet would be shattered this time. But nothing happened. So he resumed his sweeping, twitching an ear upwards. That was all he needed to do for his sons to know he was listening.

"You said that I put that big scratch on the Shellraiser," Michelangelo said slowly. His physical movements had been effortlessly fluid ever since he was very small, but whenever he tried to say something serious, the words were always halting, as though he had never really achieved fluency in the fine art of formulating a complete thought and then translating it into speech. "But you knew that wasn't true, because _you_ put that scratch on the Shellraiser."

"That is so," Splinter said, without interrupting the rhythm of his sweeping.

"You framed me," Michelangelo said.

"That is so," Splinter said.

"That is way uncool," Michelangelo said.

"This is also so," Splinter agreed.

Silence fell again as Splinter carefully gathered a scattering of dust into a pile, and swept it into the pan. It was obvious where the conversation was going, but Michelangelo did not know how to say his next line without being unacceptably disrespectful to his father.

"How would you like me to make it right?" Splinter said finally, a question that was not a promise. He had long since learned not to extend the offer "Anything you want" to his youngest, since what Michelangelo most wanted often was dangerous, unrealistic, or simply nonexistent.

("Raph has a pet turtle," Michelangelo had said on one occasion, when Splinter had needed to beg his young son's forgiveness for a transgression. "Why can't I have a pet dragon? It doesn't have to come with a hoard of gold. It's okay if it just can fly and breathe fire."

Splinter had not known how to respond without crushing his son's dreams, not to mention his spirit.)

"I want to see where you lived before," Michelangelo said.

Splinter furrowed his brow. Normally, when given the opportunity to obtain – or at least ask for – what his heart most desired, Michelangelo named whatever fantasy popped into his head first. Today, it sounded like he had _thought_ about his request, and what he had come up with was not only easily attainable, but downright mundane. Splinter could not see why any of his sons would be interested in such a thing, let alone the one with the biggest imagination.

"It is not much," he said, moving the dustpan aside with his dexterous toes, and moving on to the next section of floor. "Merely a small area adjacent to the sealed-off basement of a demolished building. I believe it used to contain mechanical items."

"No, _before_ ," Michelangelo said.

Splinter looked up to see a strange earnestness shining in his son's eyes – as though he were finally imagining not mythical creatures and fairy palaces, but a real place, a place he had not yet seen in reality, but which he could go and visit and find out the truth of.

"Before I mutated?" he asked, and Michelangelo nodded emphatically. "I –"

"Don't say you don't like to go topside," Michelangelo said. "I don't think you can use that excuse anymore."

Splinter looked down, and wondered how long his son had been hiding this wish. "It has been a long time," he said. "I do not remember where I lived. But I will think about it," he said, before Michelangelo could voice his disappointment or question his father's honesty.

"Thanks, Dad," Michelangelo said, and just for fun he bounced off the hanging ramp, caught the edge with one hand, swung himself into a triple somersault, and ricocheted into a front flip, before sauntering off to his room.

Splinter shook his head. For as long as he had been his children's sensei, he was certain he would never master all the little contradictions that made them who they were.

* * *

Three days and many hours of meditation later, Splinter knocked on his youngest's door. There was little reason to do so; Michelangelo was the only one of the brothers who never used the lock on his room. He seemed to have no concept of privacy, either for himself or anyone else. In fact, it seemed to unsettle him a little whenever someone asked permission to enter his space, rather than barging right in. But, for a whole variety of reasons, Splinter just could not shake the feeling that he should not walk in on his teenaged sons announced.

Michelangelo was doing nothing more secretive than reading a comic book – one marketed to girls half his age, it appeared from the candy-colored artwork on the cover – and he smiled brightly when his father entered. Splinter sometimes wondered whether his youngest was experiencing some kind of delayed maturation process, and would become moody and withdrawn when he was approximately 30. But for now, he was simply grateful to still have one child who was always happy to see him.

"Come quickly," Splinter said.

"Are we going to your old digs?" Michelangelo asked, and it was a sign of how important this was to him, that he had managed to keep the idea in the front of his mind for three whole days.

In answer, Splinter merely beckoned for him to follow.

"But it's the middle of the day," Michelangelo said, in a rare show of awareness of how multiple facts fit together. "Shouldn't we go at night?"

"My son," Splinter said, pausing in the doorway, "we are going to my former apartment. Surely someone else lives there now. When are they most likely to not be at home?" He gestured to the central living area, where sunlight was streaming through the gnarled branches of their underground tree. "During the day."

"Ohhhhh," Michelangelo said, and hopping off the bed, he grabbed his nunchaku and followed his father.

They traveled swiftly. In his mind's eye, Splinter had stared into his own past until images began to return to him. The subway station he waited in each morning, and returned to each evening. The teriyaki cart where he could obtain cheap, hot food that vaguely resembled his mother's cooking. The corner where that cart had stood before its owner had achieved the American Dream and become a wealthy businessman – or, possibly, been deported. The few blocks between that corner and Splinter's own neighborhood. The cluster of apartment buildings around their courtyard. The front steps. The heavy door. The ancient, clanking elevator. Eight stories up. A keyhole. A home…

He remembered where he had lived, in his last months as a man. He took his son there now.

They concealed themselves inside the mail kiosk. Hundreds of mailboxes, one for each unit in the complex, all packed together in this small outdoor structure. Splinter did not remember now which one had been his; he could not recall the number of his unit. But he knew from muscle memory how to get to it, and he peered out through the doorway of the kiosk, making sure his recollections were accurate.

It was startling how closely the courtyard resembled his mental images. He thought there had been a small, sickly tree, struggling along in the heavy shade of the crowded buildings. It was not there now. But the sign bearing the name of the complex looked familiar, and the metal front doors were the same color as before, and the yellowish brick of the outside walls looked unchanged, except perhaps for being a bit dirtier and a bit more worn with the passage of time.

"Come," Splinter said, and they darted across the cracked asphalt to the front door of one of the buildings. Splinter picked the lock in seconds. His muscle memory remembered that too: having spent his whole life, prior to fleeing his country, among his ninja clan, he had never locked a door. Either his clan brothers were trustworthy, or they would simply break in. Thus, while living in New York, Splinter had more than once forgotten to take his keys when he went to the mail kiosk, and had locked himself out, and had chosen to let himself back in rather than walk to the superintendent's office and admit his error. The superintendent, he now vividly recalled, had been equipped with numerous descriptions of the stupidity of immigrants, which was odd, since based on Splinter's encounters with his neighbors, it seemed to be mostly immigrants who paid the superintendent's salary. At any rate, through interactions with that man, Splinter had learned much English vocabulary which he had tried not to pass on to his sons.

He snapped back to the present as the lock clicked open; he hurried Michelangelo inside and made sure the door shut firmly behind them.

From there, he let them into the utility stairs. This enclosed staircase was unlocked, since a building of this height was required to have two stairways accessible to residents. But it was dark and filthy and hence never used, even by the maintenance staff who were supposed to keep out of the way of those who paid to live here.

Eight stories was no trouble for a pair of ninjas who until recently had traveled everywhere on foot, and soon they were emerging onto Splinter's floor. A powerful sense of déjà vu overtook him as he approached his own apartment – the strangest feeling that he was 29 again, and had just come home from work, and was going to walk into his kitchen and prepare a simple meal with inexpensive ingredients, and then perhaps he would take out his books and study English, if he did not go straight to bed, exhausted from a long day of physical labor.

"… Sensei?" Michelangelo said, and he was again a six-foot-tall rat with a dependent child at his side, and he was about to break into a stranger's place of residence in order to satisfy his son's bizarre curiosity about his former life.

He picked the lock and entered.

Inside, a stranger's furniture, but the basic framework of the apartment was as familiar as the outside of the building had been. The walls had been repainted, maybe, to the same slightly-unpleasant shade of yellow. The kitchen appliances looked as though they had not been updated since fifteen years ago. The window treatments were even more faded and battered than Splinter remembered, and he would have sworn he recognized some of the stains on the brown-ish carpet.

It did not take Michelangelo long to explore the small bedroom, the small kitchen, the small bathroom, the small living and dining area. "It's kind of… small," he said.

"It is New York," Splinter said, the first words he had spoken since re-entering this place. He wondered what his last words had been, when he still lived here. He could hardly remember what it felt like to speak with the mouth of a man. "Everything is small."

"The Lair isn't small," Michelangelo pointed out.

"It is a forgotten space," Splinter said. "New York has built _up_ like few other cities in the world, but it has mostly neglected to build _down_. This is one of the few advantages of living below the surface."

Michelangelo nodded, half-listening as he made another circuit of the apartment. "So this is where we would have lived," he said, mostly to himself. "Which would have been my room?" he asked, even though it was clear there was not a plethora of choices.

"You would not have had a room," Splinter said. "You were a turtle."

He sensed that his son was about to ask another question, but he closed his eyes and twitched his ears backwards. Again he was overcome by memory, and he walked forward, blind to the present but wide awake in the past.

"Here," he said, stopping in the corner by the living room's only window. "I had a small table here. I would have put the aquarium on it."

"… 'Would have'?" Michelangelo asked. "Don't you mean 'did'?"

Splinter shook his head. "The accident with the mutagen happened when I was first bringing you and your brothers home. I fled to the sewers immediately, and did not return to this place." He opened his eyes, looking at the corner, at the window, at Michelangelo, standing strong and confident next to a recliner. "My son, you have never set foot – or flipper – in this apartment before."

Michelangelo looked around again with new understanding, imagining now not what his life would have been like here as a mutant, but what it would have been like as an ordinary pet turtle. And then, his focus shifted, as he grasped something about what his father's life had been like here.

"You lost everything," he said quietly. "When you mutated."

Splinter shook his head again. "I lost everything when Saki burned down my home in Japan - my wife, my child, many of my family's relics. Here, only a few pieces of secondhand furniture. Nothing that I miss."

"Nothing?" Michelangelo asked, his eyes going wide as he tried to imagine a life so impoverished that to lose everything would be no loss at all.

"No –" Splinter began, and then another memory flashed across his vision, and before he knew it he was moving across the room.

"Sensei?" Michelangelo asked, hurrying to follow.

"There is one thing," Splinter said. He flicked on the light in the bathroom, and dropped to his knees on the recently-washed floor. The current occupant of this apartment, he dimly noticed, was trying to make a decent home amidst the near-squalid conditions. "My sword," he said, as he bent low and squinted under the porcelain curve of the toilet bowl. "I hid it very well. When I disappeared, and did not pay the rent, the landlord surely sold, or threw away, all my things. But maybe he did not find my sword. Maybe _no one_ has found it, these fifteen years."

"Oh my gosh," Michelangelo squeaked, his mood turning from melancholy to excited. "It's like buried treasure! Is the sword magic?" But Splinter hardly heard him as he pulled a knife from under his robe and drove it into the molding behind the toilet.

He had noticed this spot not long after moving into this apartment, in the winter of 1987. The bathroom's heating grate – which half the time issued no heat, making for icy showers Splinter did not think he could have withstood except for his ninja training – was, oddly, located in the floor behind the toilet. Even more oddly, the molding between the floor and the wall had been installed _over_ the grate, making it impossible to lift the grate out of the vent without first prying off the molding. After observing this, Splinter had had a series of nightmares in which he dropped his wedding ring, or his photo of Miwa, or another small and precious object, down this grate, and was unable to get it back.

And after several of these dreams, Splinter had broken a length of molding off the wall, pulled up the grate, and hidden his sword beneath it.

Then he had prayed to his wife's spirit, thanking her for sending him these visions. He'd had no more of those dreams, and had not even remembered them until this moment.

The section of molding, which Splinter had so carefully pasted back into place all those years ago, popped off easily now. The grate stuck stubbornly in its opening, but with his strong claws he was able to dislodge it, standing it on end in the corner to get it out of the way. Then, contorting his body, he reached under the tiles, under the floorboards, twisting his arm backwards to find the spot where he had hidden the sword, deep in the heating duct where it could not be seen even if someone managed to look straight down through the vent –

His hand closed on a fabric bundle.

He knew that was not how he had left his sword.

Splinter retracted his arm, banging his elbow painfully against the edge of the hole in the floor. He slammed the grate back into place and shoved the piece of molding into its spot, leaving it tilted half off the wall. The apartment's resident would likely notice it hanging loose, but that could easily be blamed on the wet conditions in the unit.

Splinter scrambled backwards, the knife still in one hand, scooping up the fabric bundle with the other. He slit the twine holding it together as he sat up on his knees, and the corners of the cloth fell away, revealing a sword in three pieces.

 _His_ sword, shattered. Tied to the longest fragment of blade, with a silk ribbon, a yellowed scroll.

Splinter suddenly found his senses on even higher alert than they had been since he and Michelangelo had left the Lair to come to this graveyard of memories. "My son," he said quietly. "I think we should leave this place."

* * *

The sword was corroded, the leather wrappings of the hilt torn. The paper, when Splinter unrolled it, was spotted with mildew. But the writing was clear.

At the top of the parchment, the symbol of the Foot clan, stamped in red ink. And below that, a string of numerals and Japanese characters, written in a skilled hand.

 _14_ _日_ _7_ _月_ _1987_ _年_

"What does it say?" asked Donatello, who was hanging over Splinter's shoulder, having vied with his brothers for the best viewing spot after hearing a story that explained where the sword and its accompanying note had come from, and why they were important.

"It is a date," Splinter replied, tracing a claw over the familiar kanji. "July 14th, 1987."

"The Shredder's birthday?" Raphael asked, covering his nervousness with sarcasm. "I am not buying him a present."

"It is not his birthday," said Splinter, who knew well the date of the Shredder's birth, having celebrated it often enough when they had been Yoshi and Saki and the best of friends.

"Then what is it?" asked Leonardo, who obviously was searching his encyclopedic knowledge of historically significant dates, and coming up empty.

"It is shortly after we were mutated," Splinter said, without lifting his eyes from the broken sword. Then he looked up. "My sons… this means that my enemy was mere weeks from finding me when I – when all of us - encountered the mutagen. This accident, becoming what I am now…" He lay the note gently among the shards. "It saved my life."

"Whoa," said Michelangelo, while his brothers exchanged fearful looks. "That is cosmic."

"But now what?" Leonardo asked. "I mean, 1987 was fifteen years ago."

"That is so," Splinter acknowledged. "But the Shredder does not let go of his prey. I assure you he has not forgotten me, nor stopped searching for me. And now that our paths are crossing again…" He narrowed his eyes at the symbol of the Foot, bright against the faded paper. "I fear it will not be long until he discovers where I have been all these years."

"We'll be ready," Raphael said, taking a few paces across the floor and swinging his sai at an imaginary foe.

"Indeed," Splinter replied. He turned his head, and out of the corner of his eye he could see the doorway to Donatello's lab, where the Shellraiser was casting its long shadow down the stairs. "My sons, it may be nearly time for us to disappear again."

 **End…?**


End file.
